Ghostbusters: The Return
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: After several years of peace in New York, the Ghostbusters are called back into the line of duty and they return with new recruits: their kids.
1. Chapter 1

Ghostbusters: The Return

It was a hot June morning in New York City; the sun was beating down heating up not only the exterior temperatures but also the short fused tempers of everybody rushing off to work. People were running all through the middle of town catching cabs, getting on buses, heading for the subways, running through the crosswalks and up the sidewalks. One stuffy businessman in particular was running late and decided to get a cab. Looking out to the streets he saw one yellow cab parked with no occupant in the backseat.

"Taxi!" he called as he headed for it.

Jumping into the back seat he told the driver to take him to 55th Street. The driver, who could not be seen from the backseat, sat behind the wheel smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. The red turban he wore was the only thing sticking over the top of the driver's seat.

"Anywhere in particular on the 55th you want to go?" he asked.

That was when the businessman noticed something didn't seem right about his driver. He glanced at the hack license and saw that this cab belonged currently to a woman.

"Uh, no," he replied, "Just get me to 55th Street and drop me off."

She turned around to look back at him. She didn't resemble her hack license at all and barely looked old enough to drive. Not bothering to take the cigarette out of her mouth she said, "You got it."

On that note she turned on the ignition and without so much a glance at the traffic behind them, went tearing down the street, easily exceeding the given speed limit on the street signs.

"Have you been driving long?" the nervous businessman asked as he watched the scenery rushing by outside the car windows.

"I've had enough time to perfect my technique," she answered.

A large truck swerved in front of the cab and cut them off. The woman rolled down the window and stuck her head out, "HEY WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, KING OF THE ROAD?!"

Pulling her head back in, she removed her cigarette and threw it out and stepped on the gas until they were doing 60 miles per hour through 66th Street. They came to a sudden halt at a traffic jam and she did an illegal U-turn and headed back for 64th Street.

"Now where are we going?" the man asked.

She told him, "You couldn't get through that jam with a pack of dynamite, we're going to take a detour through Amsterdam Avenue."

He looked at the hack license again. "How do you pronounce your last name?" he asked.

"Venk-man," the driver answered, "My name is Pauline Venkman and I'm you cab driver for the day."

The car sped up to 70 miles an hour and the very nervous man in the backseat started to silently pray. Finally they reached 55th Street and the car came to a neat stop and the man fell out of the back and kissed the ground he landed on.

"Now that just leaves the fare," Pauline told him, "$17.50."

The man reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and threw some bills at her. "KEEP THE CHANGE YOU LOONEY! WHERE'D YOU LEARN TO DRIVE?"

"Why New York City of course, the land of opportunities," she answered.

Screaming, the man headed off to his job, and Pauline sorted the bills and placed them with the others she'd made from driving people around so far that day. Already she had collected $150 and it was only 9 in the morning.

"And people say there's no money in the taxi business anymore," she commented.

She turned the key in the ignition and was about to take off again when she noticed something coming up the street. A blur resembling a light blue transparent hotrod with three young occupants came speeding up 55th street and came directly at the taxi. In fact it would have collided into the cab except for the fact that it passed _through_ the car and kept on heading up the street.

Pauline looked back at the quickly disappearing sight, and unaffected by what had just happened, said in a deadpan tone, "Lead foots," and hurried off to find another sucker to drive through town.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, there rested a block and a half away from the rest of human civilization, Stantz Manor, a three story white elephant which rested on a large piece of property. The house was the only part of the property that resembled class anymore as there were three cars piled up in the driveway and the grass was getting as tall as tumbleweeds.

Off in one of the rooms of the house, Ray sat behind a desk looking over papers while Peter sat opposite him, rambling on.

"When we mortgaged the house to start our business you were so worried you were going to lose the house," Peter reminded him, "Well you didn't, and now you have this dump you probably wish you had lost because they're just stringing you along now with all these excessive bills and taxes, with their hearts bleeding all over the place about how some half assed organization is benefiting from our raised cost of living expenses."

"Peter, I'm trying to get this," Ray told him as he kept his eyes on the bills.

"A fine thing, our wives walk out on us for their annual vacation away from their husbands, our kids come home today, your daughter hasn't been home since New Year's and she's going to find you hunched over the desk, it'll be like the last time she was here," Peter said.

"I still wish you would reconsider my idea," Ray told him, finally looking up, "If you think about it, it makes sense."

"To _you_, Ray, but what do you know about logic?" Peter asked, "You're the guy who gave New York City a 100 foot tall marshmallow man."

"I was just thinking," he said, "We've been retired now for quite a few years. Doesn't it seem strange that after so long, New York City just seemed to quiet down?"

"Well New York is the city that never sleeps and you know people always say 'I'll get all the sleep I need when I'm dead'? Maybe they all went someplace where it's quiet. Besides, people don't want ghosts caught anymore; they want them explained, like dinosaurs and great white sharks."

"Maybe but I still wonder if we ought to look into it," Ray said.

"We're not Ghostbusters anymore," Peter told him, "We agreed on that when the public quit needing us. They're not calling to complain about eggs frying on the counter or some green onion head terrorizing everybody in a hotel, or a mink coat coming alive and running off, so why should we go looking for trouble?"

"I know you're right, but it's still strange," Ray replied.

Neither said a word and it was in that silence that they heard the oncoming roar of the sirens to the Ectomobile.

"Winston!" they simultaneously said as they all but jumped out of their chairs.

Ray headed out the door while Peter stayed behind, opened the door to the dumbwaiter and hollered up it, "Hey Egon! Get down here, the girls are home!"

They reached the front door and ran out to the porch and saw the Ecto-2 pull up and stop. The doors flew open, Winston got out on the driver's side and out of the backseat came his daughter, Jewell who was built like an Amazon, nearly as tall as her father and with muscles sticking out just about everywhere. Next was Egon's daughter, Benjamina, who was four-eyed, tall and lanky as was her father in his youth. At the end of the line was Ray's daughter, Raynelle, shorter than the other two but still bearing strong resemblance to her father.

Peter immediately noticed in a headcount they were one short.

"I guess Pauline didn't want to be embarrassed in front of her friends by being picked up in the company car," he said.

"I stopped by the taxi company to get her," Winston said, "They said she had already left, so she must be on her way here."

"Oh really? Well good then…I'll go alert Slimer," Peter turned around and headed into the house.

Up the sidewalk and into the house the girls walked on their father's arms, discussing what they had been up to lately. Jewell had just returned from training as a Navy SEAL but unfortunately had not done as well as was necessary to be declared one. Raynelle was on vacation from her second year at MIT's school of science. And Benjamina was on break from her job at the observatory in the next town.

"Uncle Winston," Benjamina said as they entered the living room, "Did they really say Pauline left for the day?"

"I checked with the cab company," Winston told the others, quietly so Peter wouldn't hear them, "And guess who's not working there anymore."

"Oh no," Benjamina said.

"Again?" Jewell asked.

"What for this time?" Raynelle wanted to know.

"Apparently she's managed to pick up 23 traffic violations since she started," Winston said.

"That's not so bad," Ray said, "This is New York City, anybody can pick up a few tickets."

"In the first and only week?" Winston replied, "But I checked to see what the final straw was. They said there was eyewitness account that she got into a collision with another car."

"Oh boy," Ray said.

"That's not all of it…when asked what the damages were, they said there were none. No smashed fenders, no broken lights, no dents, no scratches, the cab was in the same second grade condition it had already been."

"I'm confused," Benjamina said, "Why would they fire her then if there's no damage?"

"How could she hit another car and not have damage is a better question," Egon said.

"I found some people who had been on 55th Street when it happened, they said the other car was some kind of old hotrod, and the two were on the same path and the second car seemed to go _through_ the cab and just keep on going."

"What!?" the girls asked.

Ray and Egon looked at each other.

"What do you think?" Ray asked.

"Things have been quiet for a while, perhaps _too_ quiet," Egon said, "Something might be building up again."

"But after so long?" Ray asked, "I was just telling Peter how inexplicably calm things have been in town regarding any sign of paranormal phenomena…why has it been quiet for so long?"

"Does it matter?" Jewell asked, "It seems the bears have come out of hibernation again."

"Something about it all still doesn't calculate," Egon said, "They fired her for getting into a collision that left no damage?"

"Uh no, actually she got fired because when the manager confronted her about the wreck, she beat the hell out of him," Winston explained.

"That doesn't make sense either," Benjamina said, "She's always had a temper but she wouldn't beat on anybody. Why do you think she would do that?"

"For that matter, do you think she's on her way here?" Raynelle asked.

"I sincerely hope so," Winston said, "You know how she drives when she's angry, and she can stay angry a long time."

"I agree," Ray responded, "A psychogenically disturbed time bomb accelerating around the city is the last thing we need to go chasing after."

"What he said," Jewell added, "But what if something is wrong with her?"

"You know Pauline," Egon said, "She'll never agree to let us examine her but if she does arrive, we can monitor her behavior during her stay and see if anything seems particularly disturbing."

"Well just don't let Peter catch on," Ray told him, "You know how he would act, he'd never agree to it either. He's been very moody lately. I don't get it."

"Maybe he's pregnant," Jewell commented.

"That's impossible," Raynelle told her.

"Alright," Jewell reconsidered, "Maybe he's menopausal."

Benjamina blinked and her eyes widened, "How is that possible?"

"You tell me," Jewell said, "You're the scientist."

* * *

Pauline parked her motorcycle in the yard and went up to the front door. Looking around the yard she saw it looked about the same as when she was there at New Year's, except now there was grass that was coming up near her knees. She stepped on the porch and rang the bell and waited for somebody to answer. There were three cars piled in the driveway and the Ectomobile was at the curb so she knew the others had to already be there.

The door opened and she turned around and came face to face with her father. Not having met since the beginning of the year, both were overwhelmed to see the other again.

"Come on in," he said, "What took you so long to get here? You know Winston was coming down to get everybody."

"I know," she replied as they stepped in and got reacquainted with everybody else before she continued, "But I got fired today and I didn't feel like waiting around listening to the manager yelling at me."

"You got fired?" he asked, "From a cab company? That's one of the most common jobs in the world, any boob could do it."

"I did it before I went to college," Ray said.

"See what I mean?" Peter said, "How did you get fired?"

"Ah who knows? Nothing I've done since I got there has made the boss happy, it's like joining the army…"

"And how would you know what that's like?" Jewell asked, "You were never in the army."

"Sure I was, for about a day," she answered.

"Wait a minute," Ray said, "I thought when you left in January you said you were going to college, what happened?"

"I quit after the first week," she said, "Then I went to join the army…they wouldn't take me and told me to get out because I was too ugly to look at. So I tried the navy and they wouldn't have me either because they said I didn't pass the physical. After that I tried the Air Force…they saw how I drove and said they wouldn't trust me with a plane if it was filled with nitro and I was dive bombing the Koreans. So then I tried the Marines, they wouldn't take me either on account of to fit in there you have to be some sort of mathematical genius of which I am not."

"You can say that again," Raynelle commented.

"After that," Pauline added, "I volunteered for the Coast Guard, they wouldn't take me either on account of they travel in local and international waters and they figured if we capsized I'd sink to the bottom like a tub of cement. That commanding officer was one to talk, he was so fat if he fell in he could float forever on his stomach. Anyway, after that I started work for the cab company, and today they fired me, for what? Okay, I got a few tickets, who doesn't in this city? All I know is that I'm dropping an accountant off at 55th Street so he can get to work, and the next thing I know I'm being fired for doing absolutely nothing."

"Nothing?" Winston repeated, wondering what was going on, "Are you sure?"

"I don't know what he was bellyaching about, I come in early, I stay late, I forgo my lunch breaks because that's when everybody and his brother is trying to get a ride…I do everything for that ungrateful baboon and this is how he repays me by throwing me out of the company when I've done nothing wrong?"

Winston, Ray and Egon carefully glanced at each other so Peter wouldn't notice. They knew something wasn't adding up. Naturally they gave her the benefit of the doubt; she probably didn't want her father to know she had KO'ed her boss but it still didn't add up that she would insist she hadn't done anything to get fired. There was something about her story that didn't make any sense and they couldn't even see through the holes in it.

* * *

At the 63rd Precinct, Sergeant Stacker, a big bellied cop in his 50s was having quite a time answering the phones. New York had always been full of crackpots and rum pots but now people were calling him up to report things unimaginable. His most recent call had been from a man claiming his fridge was spewing out flames. The phone rang again and he answered.

"63rd Precinct…sir…let me get this straight, you say that a park bench _bit_ you and ran away?" he rolled his eyes, "You don't need the police, you need Betty Ford!"

Officer Ramis, a slightly younger cop who got along with Sergeant Stacker about as well as the Honeymooners, stepped into the office with a stack of files under one arm.

"Rough night, Artie?" he asked.

"I'm about to go crazy from all these jokers calling in," he said, "It's ridiculous, one guy says a bench bit him, another says his refrigerator is imitating a fire breathing dragon. A woman called half an hour ago who said she set a pound of bacon on her counter to thaw and it started frying itself through the wrapper. The public's out of its mind."

"Boy, sounds weird alright," the young officer replied, "You'd expect to get calls like that on April Fool's Day."

The phone rang again and he picked up the receiver and though he dreaded it, answered, "63rd Precinct." It was a familiar voice on the other end, "Murray! Where have you been? I need you to report back to the station, things are going nutty here…Murray…Murray…you WHAT!?"

"What is it?" Officer Ramis asked.

The sergeant put his hand over the mouthpiece on the receiver and answered, "It's Murray all excited, he says that he stopped a woman for jaywalking and she said she'd run all the way from Lakehurst."

"In Jersey?"

"Yeah, he says she told him she wanted to get as far away as possible from the explosion."

"What explosion?"

"What explosion, Murray?" he asked into the phone. A minute passed and he seemed to grow sick, he put his hand over the receiver and answered, "The Hindenburg."

"The what!?"

"Murray," he said into the phone, "I want you to report back here right now. I think it's time we discussed a little vacation for you, I think you need a rest…I…Murray! Oh no, oh no," the sergeant dropped the receiver and started crying.

"What's the matter?" Officer Ramis asked.

"He said a park bench just bit him and ran away!"


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't get it," Winston said, "This car was working fine earlier."

"Well it's not working fine now," Jewell told him.

"Well we'll move it to the garage and I'll see if I can find the problem there," Winston said, "You coming, Egon?"

"I have something to look into," he replied, "But I'll send Ray out to help."

"Where's he going?" Jewell asked her father.

"If I know him," Winston answered, "55th Street to see what he can find out about that collision that occurred today."

"But do you think he will find anything out?" she wanted to know.

"He might not find the hotrod that rammed into the cab, but odds are he'll find something," he told his daughter, "That's one thing about your uncle, if he can't find what he's looking for, he'll still find something to bring back."

* * *

That afternoon, Peter sat out in a lounger working on his tan while Pauline repeatedly jerked the cord to the mower; which just would not start. Ray came out the front door and walked down the porch steps and was trying to make his way from the driveway to the garage.

"Uncle Ray," Pauline said as she looked up.

"Yah?" he asked as he stopped and turned around.

"How is it there are 12 people living in this house and the lawn only gets mowed when I come home?" she asked.

"Why don't you ask your father that?" Ray suggested.

Peter lifted his sunglasses and looked at his friend, "Thanks for nothing."

"Anytime," Ray replied as he went up the driveway to the back.

Pauline gave up on the mower and went over to her father, "Dad."

"What?"

"How old were you when you became a Ghostbuster?" she asked.

"Why do you want to know?" he asked.

"I was just thinking…when you were my age, you were in college, you got two PhDs, then you became a Ghostbuster. I'm 23, what have I accomplished? I quit college after the first week, I was rejected by every branch of the United States military…"

"Don't sell yourself short," he said, "Do you know how many people don't even stick around to get rejected by all branches?"

"I tried working as a court stenographer, the judge complained in my transcripts I wrote down too many naughty words…I didn't make it as a volunteer at the dog pound, I got fired from being a cabbie…my options are running out."

"You're young," Peter told her, "Something will come to you."

"Easy for you to say, when you were my age you were already in college, and when Oscar was my age he was…"

His ears picked up on that part. "He was what?"

Now that she knew her secret was out, Pauline looked like she'd just run a hundred miles through the desert in the middle of summer. Facing defeat, she admitted to her father, "You don't know what it's like because you were an only child. His whole life he's been perfect at everything, honor roll, star athlete, top in performance arts. He's always done everything right."

"Everything?" Peter asked, "Pauline, when was the last time he was home to see us?"

"Let me think……I don't remember," she said.

"Neither do I," Peter told her, "Sure he always did everything right but now he has a swollen head from it all. He never calls, he never writes, you wait, someday he'll show up on the doorstep with a talking horse or something. Whereas you, you're here every major holiday, minor ones too, every birthday, you made a lot of A's in school, you were never arrested…you're not pregnant are you?"

"No," she dryly remarked, "I'm menstruating."

"Well there, you see? You're five stars, just like your old man…so don't worry about what you can't do. Believe me, I know what it's like to lose a job."

She stared knowingly at him.

"Okay," he admitted, "Two jobs."

She still refused to move her eyeballs from his general vicinity. He would swear she somehow managed to inherit Janine's bug eyes.

"Okay, 12," he confessed, "The point is I didn't find what I was destined to do right away either. But I finally did, and you'll find something too…in the meantime, it's like you said, if you didn't come home the grass would never get mowed."

Pauline growled at him, then got up and went to try the mower again.

"Boy, I don't get it why people think mothers are the only people cut out for this stuff," Peter said to himself as he leaned back in the lounger, "Answering the hard questions seems pretty easy to me."

* * *

In the garage, the Ectomobile was up on blocks and Winston was examining it from underneath.

"See anything?" Jewell asked from the driver's seat.

"Turn on the engine," he said.

She turned the key all the way and the engine roared to life. And what a miserable life it sounded like with all the clunking and sputtering.

"Turn the engine off!" Winston told her.

She jerked the key back to the first place and pulled it out.

"Are you alright?" Ray asked.

Winston slid out from under the car, his coveralls covered in black gunk.

"Well," he said calmly, "That wasn't it. It'll probably take all weekend to get this thing running again."

"_Can_ you fix it?" Jewell asked.

"Providing Slimer hasn't been using under the hood as a new hiding spot, I should," he answered.

"Uncle Ray," Jewell said as she turned to him, "Did Egon say where he was going?"

"No, but I can guess," he replied.

"We can all guess," Winston told him, "What's your theory?"

"I think he did go to where everybody saw that hotrod," Ray said.

"How do you figure that, exactly?" Jewell asked.

"He went to the basement, dug out one of the PKE meters and took it with him," Ray answered, "None of us has had any use for those things for years."

* * *

It had been a long time since he'd seen this side of town but one conclusion Egon quickly came to was that 55th street was a lot bigger than he remembered. High, low, he walked along with the meter in his hand, examining its readings, raising it and lowering it to see if it could pick up anything more than it had been. For a short while he walked hunched over following the readings he got from the sidewalk, and he followed those readings until he noticed along the way, a woman's leg standing in the way. He looked from the high heel to the dark pantyhose up the woman's long red dress and finally saw her face, which would be perfect for a dragon mask. Jerking, Egon jumped back and got away from that woman as quickly as possible and continued down the street.

Thus far all he'd found were very _low_ readings, nothing strong enough to suggest anything unusual was going on. Adjusting his glasses he looked around and saw that even for New York, nothing strange seemed to be going on at this time at all.

He shook his head. It didn't make sense. Maybe he'd just been out of the paranormal investigating business for too long but something wasn't adding up. Even when the ghosts were long gone they usually left some trace behind of their passing through. He hated to admit it but he was starting to consider maybe he'd gotten too old to do this job right anymore. As he considered throwing in the towel and returning home, he heard an unusual noise coming from behind. He turned around just as a blur passed by, and even though he had been standing in the middle of the sidewalk, he got clipped by what he would swear was a speeding car with a bunch of passengers zooming by.

When he opened his eyes again he was sitting on the pavement, his limbs tangled over one another, and whatever it was that almost hit him was long gone without a trace. For a moment he thought that perhaps he had stumbled upon the mysterious speeders that Pauline had met with earlier that morning. He grabbed at the PKE meter he'd dropped to see what reading it had picked up…only to find the meter had broken when he dropped it.

With a huff and a sigh he commented to himself, "I'm almost certain somewhere in the universe is a powerful being who just loves to yank at my proverbial chain to see if I'll jerk."

Collecting the pieces of the meter, he swore to himself in Sumerian. It wasn't the meter breaking that bugged him, he could easily fix that…but by the time he did he wasn't sure if he'd be able to find a second time that thing that almost ran him down.

* * *

"Didn't find anything, huh?" Ray asked when Egon joined him in the basement.

"I wouldn't quite say that," Egon remarked as he put the broken pieces of the PKE meter on the table, "But if there's something out there, apparently this time it's smart enough to know how not to get caught."

"What happened?" Ray wanted to know, "Are you alright?"

He seemed to consider that question before finally answering, "It's more my pride injured than anything."

"Egon, I've known you since college, you never had any pride," Ray said.

"It's awfully quiet in here, too quiet perhaps. Where is everybody?" Egon asked as he went over to the containment unit.

"Winston's working on the car, Jewell's helping him…Raynelle and Benjamina went out for the afternoon, and Peter and Pauline are…" it was then Ray realized he didn't know what they were doing, "Well they're around here somewhere. She seems to be doing alright…except she still says she doesn't know why she got fired."

"Hmm."

"Do you think she really doesn't remember?" Ray asked.

"Let's face it, Ray," Egon told him, "This is Peter's kid, she comes from a long line of goof offs, hot heads and con artists…ordinarily when she does something she shouldn't, she's proud of it. If she's not admitting to something now it's either because it's more serious than we think, or she truly doesn't remember."

Ray just shook his head, "I thought we'd seen everything in this business but this is a new one on me."

Egon nodded, "Me too. But…I'm always up to a challenge…" He looked down at the broken meter, "And first I'll see to this one."

They heard the basement door open and Pauline called down, "Hey Egon, are you down here?"

"I'll check," he half absentmindedly replied, "Yeah I'm here."

She came down the stairs and looked around the room, "Boy it's been a while since I've seen this place. What's going on?"

"Nothing," Egon answered, already submerged in his work.

"Nothing," Ray agreed.

"Well," she said as she went over to the containment unit, "I see you've managed to keep this one from blowing…I…" she noticed something on the containment unit that wasn't there the last time she came home, "What's this?"

Ray turned and saw what she was looking at, "Look in it," he told her.

"One of those huh?" she pressed her face up against what looked like a set of peepholes, "I had to look through one of these to get my driver's license, I…holy crap!"

That was enough to draw a reaction even from Egon. He turned around and asked what was the matter.

"There's something in there looking at me," she said, "It doesn't have any body or any head, it's just one big eyeball…what's going on? Since when did we become able to look at these things and they can look back at us?"

"That's one of Egon's latest experiments," Ray told her.

"Why?"

"A few months ago I had a thought," Egon started to explain.

"Congratulations," she replied.

Ignoring her, he continued, "After all the years that we caught ghosts and put them away it occurred to me that we might stand to benefit from monitoring their behavior from inside the containment system."

"What behavior? They're dead, they're floating around in a space that's 20 feet tall by four feet wide, and odds are they're highly pissed off at having to be stuck in there for eternity," Pauline said.

"That's true but I think it would serve a purpose to watch them for behavioral patterns. I'm interested in seeing how they act amongst the others…they come from different categories, different levels…I never questioned it before but I think we could benefit from seeing how they interact with the apparitions unlike themselves."

"Hmm," Pauline stuck her eye against the hole again, "Well it looks pretty full in there…I see the Scolari brothers, I see a dead jogger, I see a dinosaur's skeleton…and they all look pretty mad to me," she said as she inched away from the containment unit, "Uncle Egon."

Egon was bent over the PKE meter and seemed to be oblivious to the goings on around him.

"Egon," she said a bit louder.

"Hmm?" he finally looked up.

"Are you sure you built a big enough containment unit this time?" she asked, "It looks pretty full."

"It should be," he replied, "You'd be surprised at the number of ghosts we managed to catch in one trap at a time, and that," he pointed to the containment system, "Is far larger than one of the traps."

"If you say so."

With that, she disappeared back up the stairs, and now an uncomfortable thought was racing around in Ray's mind.

"Spengler?"

"Hmm?"

"Where did we put the traps when we quit going out on calls?" Ray asked.

"Under the workbench," he answered, "Why?"

"I just thought of something…" Ray picked up the traps one by one and set them on the table, "When we quit as Ghostbusters, are you sure that we remembered to empty all of the traps?"

Egon turned around and opened his mouth to reply, but he stopped. Apparently the thought was now working its way through his mind and suddenly he wasn't so sure either.

"Hmmmm…I wouldn't think we'd forget," Egon said.

"I know, but you remember right around the time we called it quits, that big storm came up and we had to rush everybody to the basement. Then the next day we came up and the roof had been ripped off the house and we spent the next few weeks renovating the place…after that I never thought about the traps again, did you?" Ray asked.

Looking a bit worried, Egon shook his head. "I didn't," he confessed.

"And we know Peter would never have thought about it," Ray added, "So for all we know we could still have something locked up in one of these things."

Egon went over to the table and picked up one of the traps and looked at it as though it were a foreign object. "Only one way to find out," he said, "We'll have to run them in through the unit and see if we get a green light on any of them."

However, before they could start on that, from directly above they heard the blood curdling noise of people screaming, a couple of people they identified as being their own daughters.

"What now?" Ray asked.

"Whatever it is, you can be sure it's not good," Egon told him as he set the trap back down, "We'll go through these later, let's go see what happened."


	3. Chapter 3

Ray, always the most excitable of the four, ran out the back door immediately asking, "Is everybody okay? Is anybody hurt?"

Egon, who had a long history for being mellow, calmly walked out the back door behind Ray and simply asked, "What happened?"

They saw Peter standing in the driveway looking towards the street. Egon and Ray looked also and saw what Peter did. All the girls had piled into Jewell's car, which had collided with the Ectomobile and now both cars' fronts were smashed in and the passengers all looked like they had a whiplash. The men ran down the driveway and Winston got out of the Ecto-2 and went over to Jewell's car.

"Are you okay?" Winston asked.

The girls were pulling themselves out of the pretzels they'd been twisted into in the crash. Jewell popped her neck and rolled her eyes and answered, "I'm okay, how bout the rest of you?"

Pauline touched her mouth and said, "I think I broke my front teeth." She tapped Benjamina on the shoulder to get her attention, "Do they look like Slimer's?" and she opened her mouth wide.

Benjamina shook her head, "No, they're still crooked."

"What happened?" Ray asked.

"We were going for a drive and we were coming up the street as Winston was pulling out…then this guy came speeding out of nowhere and we almost ran into him," Raynelle told them as she got out.

Jewell added as she got out of the car on her side, "And I swerved to the right and we crashed into the Ecto-2. I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Winston replied, "Is everybody okay?"

"I think so," Benjamina answered as she stepped over the door on her side and got out, "But now it doesn't look like anybody's going anywhere."

They got out and everybody examined the damage on both cars.

"It won't take long to have the dents fixed," Winston said, "Other than that they should run fine."

"Until then," Peter commented, "It looks like you're stuck with us for the day."

"Why not?" Pauline asked dryly as she shrugged her shoulders, "This is what we waited six months for anyway."

* * *

That afternoon as the eight people tried to catch up on what had been going on in the past few months, it was a wonder anybody could decipher anything the other person was saying with them all talking at once.

"So how're things going at M.I.T?" Ray wanted to know.

"Oh…things are going fine," Raynelle told him, "But you know really, one school and another, what's the difference in them anyway?"

"How come they wouldn't accept you as a SEAL?" Winston asked his daughter.

"I think it had something to do with the fact that after the last jump in parachute training, I threw up on the instructor when he was talking," Jewell answered, "I guess it's just as well, I wasn't looking forward to going to Alaska anyway."

"Why'd you quit at the observatory?" Egon inquired.

"After all the time of looking at the stars, they all looked the same to me," Benjamina explained, "I couldn't tell Orion's Belt from Grus from the Ursa Major, you understand don't you?"

"Of course."

"You're not that upset with me, are you?"

"I'm not upset, I just wondered why you quit."

"I don't know," Pauline said to her father, "I don't think college is for me…think about it, if the president only went to school for one year and still got to be president, then clearly there are other things to do, better things to do, than spend four years in some dumb university."

"Well that's certainly understandable," Peter replied, "Now that I think about it I'm not even sure how I got through school, myself."

Egon loudly cleared his throat from the other side of the room when he heard that one.

The phone rang from one of the upstairs bedrooms and Raynelle took off to answer it. A minute later everybody heard her call down, "Dad!"

"What?" Ray asked from the living room.

"Dad!" she called again.

"What?" he asked again.

"Dad!"

"What?"

"Dad!"

"What?"

"Mom's on the phone!" Raynelle said as she came down the stairs, "She wants to talk to you."

Ray got up from the couch and climbed the stairs to the bedroom as Raynelle seated herself again.

"What scares me," Peter said to Winston, "Is that he's one of the smart ones here."

Winston just nodded his head in agreement.

* * *

"Quit pushing me," Raynelle said as they went down the basement steps, "What is it?"

"Take a look at what your Uncle Egon came up with while we were gone," Pauline pointed to the containment unit.

"Oh great, if he's _my_ uncle he did something wrong, what'd he do, blow it up?" Raynelle asked.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and Pauline led the way over to the containment system.

"Wait till you see…"

The overhead lights came on and the girls heard a set of heavy footsteps coming down the stairs.

"I thought I heard somebody down here," Egon said as he came down the stairs, "What's going on?"

"I was showing Raynelle the improvements you've made since we left home," Pauline explained.

Raynelle looked in at the ghosts stuck in the unit and said, "What's this?"

"Yeah, Egon, remind us again what you went and put a voyeur's view in the containment chamber for."

"As I told you before, I think we could stand to benefit from monitoring the behavioral patterns of the ghosts within the unit," he explained.

"Great," Pauline said as she gazed in through the holes again, "This way we'll have something to watch incase the television set ever goes out."

"I've also been working on another theory," Egon told them, "A way we could extract particular ghosts from the containment unit to examine if their behavior suggests they would stay still long enough for an analysis. Unfortunately the only way that's been possible is to shut down the protection grid and release all of them."

"So you're working on a way to vacuum out one at a time and throw back whoever you don't want…it's a thought, what've you come up with so far?"

"Very little," Egon answered, "But I'm hoping to come up with a breakthrough soon. We've had these things here for over 20 years and there's still so much unexplained about the paranormal."

* * *

Benjamina knocked on the door to her father's room and slowly opened it up and poked her head inside.

"Anybody in here?" she called out, "Obviously not."

The first thing she noticed when she stepped in was how dark it was. For some reason nobody had ever been able to figure out, her father was not too particular to sunlight. Even with the drapes pulled over the windows, she was able to see everything in Egon's room and it was exactly as he left it at the beginning of the year. On the shelf above the bed's headboard were several books on the paranormal, the underworld, the occult, ESP, etc. At the head of the line on the shelf was the well worn Tobin's Spirit Guide. Benjamina picked it up and flipped through the pages and realized there was something that didn't seem right about it.

She looked at the top of it and the off white pages were still off white, not covered in big gray hunks of dust. Closing it, she blew on the front cover and there lacked a flowing cloud of dust particles. It was very obvious to her that her father had been using this book quite often, even since retiring from the business of a professional paranormal investigator and eliminator.

"Hey."

She jumped when she heard the voice behind her and turned to see Jewell standing in the doorway.

"You scared me," she said.

"I scared you?" Jewell asked, "I think you've been away from home for too long."

"Hey!"

They both jumped when they heard the third voice behind them. They turned and saw Raynelle entering the room.

"_Don't _do that!" Benjamina said.

"What's everybody doing up here?" Raynelle wanted to know.

"Never mind," Benjamina replied, "Where's Pauline?"

"She and Uncle Peter went to get some beers," she answered, "What's going on?"

"I was looking through this," Benjamina showed them the book, "It doesn't look like this thing's had _any_ time to collect any dust."

Jewell took the guide and flipped through it, "Maybe he's been using it to research the things in the containment unit."

"I seriously doubt it," Benjamina said in return, "He always used it to get an idea of what they were _going_ to catch, not what they'd already caught."

"Yeah and some retired vets still put on their medals and march around to 'The Army Goes Rolling Along', doesn't mean anything," Jewell said, "A man loves his work, it's hard to get away from it."

"Exactly," Benjamina told her.

"I don't get it," Jewell confessed.

Raynelle seemed to be piecing it together, "A job is hard enough to get away from when you move on from it…these guys are living above a containment chamber filled with thousands of mists, free floating manifestations and full torso apparitions. And they've _been_ living with it for 20 years…I don't think they've really accepted the fact that the business is over."

"Who says it is?" Jewell asked.

"What?"

"I'm inclined to agree," Benjamina said, "Things have been peaceful for a long time but nothing lasts forever, except the ghosts. And I can't help but think, my father wouldn't be taking this thing out so much unless he had a good reason for doing so. I know my father, I can tell…he's been using thing for a long time now…but I wonder why."

From downstairs they heard the front door open, followed by Peter's voice calling out, _"Hey where is everybody? We got beer, we got pizza, now let's celebrate having the kids home with us, and our wives are gone for the month!"_

"We better get going," Jewell said.

Benjamina put the book back on the shelf and followed after the others.

* * *

The next morning, after a full afternoon and night of heavy drinking, the living room was full of discarded, empty beer bottles as well as a bunch of passed out bodies. The bright sunlight shone in through the windows but did little to stir the eight people from their slumber. Peter was sprawled out over the arms of one chair, Winston was asleep sitting up in a recliner, Pauline and Jewell lay on opposite ends of the couch with Raynelle sleeping on the top of its back, Benjamina lay next to the couch on the floor, and beside her, Egon was slowly coming around and found himself on a pumped up air mattress.

Looking over to the side and realizing where he was, he had no recollection of how he had gotten there but he had an idea he was about to find out. He felt around on and under the sheets for his glasses and couldn't find them. Turning over to the other side he came face to face with Ray who was on the other side of the mattress and was also coming around. The two men saw each other and screamed; Egon rolled over and fell off the mattress and onto the floor. The thud which followed caused everybody else to wake up and when they figured out what had happened, they all laid down again.

"What time is it?" Ray asked.

Winston opened one eye and looked at his watch, "8:30."

"Guess it's time to get up then," Jewell said as she swung her feet around and put them on the floor.

"Egon," Peter said.

"What?" he asked as he inched his way back onto the mattress.

Peter looked around the room and everything was blurry, and what wasn't blurry, he saw twelve of. "What happened last night?"

"I don't know," Ray replied, "But my mouth feels like an old sock."

"And my back feels like I've been sleeping on a shoe," Egon added.

Jewell reached for the floor by the couch to pick up her shoes and realized what was causing her uncle's back trouble.

"I thought I was one short," she said and pulled out a black steel toed boot from under Egon's spine.

"I am never…" Egon started to say, "…never, drinking that much, again."

"Oh you had a good time and you know it," Peter replied.

"That," Egon said as he pulled himself to his feet, "Is going to depend on if I remember anything from last night."

* * *

"It's very interesting," Benjamina said later that morning as she looked over the newspaper.

"What is?" Ray asked.

"This story I've been following in the paper…down near the Bahamas they've been having a string of unusual deaths occurring lately. Lot of people winding up dead, and the coroners can't really find any cause of death. Some deaths were attributed to heart failure, but the people who died were in excellent health with no history of any heart trouble. They don't know what's going on, and more deaths are occurring every day…so far the count's up to 175."

"In the Bahamas?"

"No, that's just part of it…there are such cases occurring in Havana, Panama, Belize City, and a few sectors down near Columbia and Venezuela…and everybody's at a loss. There aren't any epidemics, no common diseases found amongst the countries' populations…nobody can figure it out," Benjamina said.

"Hmm…I wonder what it is," Ray thought. He saw Egon entering the kitchen, still fidgeting with the PKE meter, "Hey Egon, what do you think?"

"What do I think about what?"

"I was saying," Benjamina started.

"What're you doing?" Ray asked.

"I've about got this thing fixed," Egon said, "Now what were you saying?"

"I was saying," she said again.

"You know, Egon, I got to thinking of something earlier," Ray said.

"What?"

"Suppose that incident at the cab company wasn't the first time something strange happened with Pauline?" Ray asked, "I mean she said she quit college after one week, do you think she knocked out the dean too?"

"I don't know," Egon replied, "I was wondering the same thing…if we can get her alone we might see what we can find out about that."

"Anyway," Benjamina chimed in, "As I was saying…"

Peter entered the kitchen and the door swung forward and hit Egon and broke the PKE meter all over again.

"I hate irony," Egon said as he picked up the pieces again.

"Good morning everybody," Peter said.

"You're in a good mood today, Uncle Peter," Benjamina noted.

From somewhere off in the house they heard Pauline bellow out _"Da-a-a-a-a-d-d-dy!"_

"What?" Peter asked as he opened the kitchen door.

"Mom's on the phone," she answered as she entered the room.

"So much for my good mood," Peter said, "They walk out on us for a month, why do they feel a need to call home every week?"

After Peter had gone out of the room, Ray said to Pauline, "You said that you quit college after only the first week?"

"Yeah, why?" she asked.

"I'm just curious…what could possibly happen within one week that you'd do that?"

"Well you know, I never did get along well with authority figures…"

"Here we go," Egon quietly remarked to Ray.

"I got into a big argument with the dean, we had a _big_ disagreement," she said.

The door opened and Peter stepped in, "What's going on?"

"I was just telling Uncle Ray and Uncle Egon about why I quit school," Pauline said as she turned to her father, "I quit because I didn't get along well with the staff. See, I was working on an experiment for a theory I had."

"What theory?" Peter asked.

"Are specific people are easily susceptible to demonic possession?" Pauline said.

"If you want to interview somebody with firsthand experience, why don't you ask your Uncle Ray?" Peter asked.

"Peter!"

"Sorry, Carpathian spiritual possession, but still it's a close second," Peter commented.

"Anyway," Pauline said, "I surveyed people asking them key questions which would be of use in the research, but you know to find somebody like that, you can't just search within one group of people. So I decided the other students weren't enough, I went around asking the staff the same questions, and they didn't take too likely to that. The dean particularly found it insulting I would assume such a man of his kind would be prone to maniacal delight in holding power over others, unprovoked spouts of obscene language, excruciatingly violent behavior and unrestrained sexual behavior."

"The dean did that?" Ray asked.

"Everybody in the college does that…by what findings I got before I quit, 95% of the students and the staff at the university express possible symptoms of demonic possession…my next step was to take all those who seemed to qualify and see if there were any similarities amongst them. But when the dean blew his stack with me, I told him I didn't enroll just to be insulted. That experiment was for my thesis and if he couldn't appreciate the effort in my work, that I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of kicking me out."

* * *

"So much for that theory," Ray said when he and Egon were alone in the basement again. Egon had just finished repairing the PKE meter again and put it away where it couldn't possibly be broken a third time in one week. At the moment he didn't figure he would be getting much more use out of it anyway.

"I called the university earlier to check her story…they said there was a difference of opinions between she and Dean Hudson, so she quit…no mention of physical assault or any sort of violent exchange between the two," Egon said, "Though if there had been, they probably would've had her arrested. So we know what happened yesterday wasn't a long term thing for her, yet."

"So now what do we do?" Ray asked.

Egon looked up at the clock and realized something, "Now we have to get out of here." On that note, he ran over to the coat rack to get his jacket.

"What? Why?" Ray asked.

"You told Raynelle after you got your pilot's license, the next time she came home you'd take her flying, and I just remembered it's supposed to rain for the rest of the week."

Ray slapped himself on the cheek, "How did I forget that?"

"Wishful thinking, perhaps?"

"You guys aren't coming too, are you?" Ray asked.

"Oh no, for some reason, Benjamina wants to go out to the racetracks and watch the races today."

"Races?"

"I can't figure out what's going through her head these days."

"Let's just be thankful she hasn't tried to drill a hole through it like her father did," Ray reminded him.

"Very funny, Ray," Egon dryly remarked.

* * *

The four fathers and their four kids had gone out for the day, each couple with a different destination in mind as to where they would be spending the afternoon. It was night before anybody returned to the house, and when that happened it was just the four girls. When everybody had gotten together, Peter had decided that the four men should go out and have a nice stiff drink to celebrate having their wives gone for the time being. One drink turned to another and another and it was three hours later and the girls had just taken themselves home.

"I hope they'll make it home okay," Benjamina said as she dropped her keys on the table.

"They'll be fine," Jewell insisted.

"Well," Pauline said, "Now that we're home, I say we take our bags upstairs and do what we forgot to do last night, and unpack."

That was a unanimous agreement and Raynelle, Jewell and Pauline grabbed their suitcases and headed up the stairs. Benjamina went into the kitchen to get a drink before joining them. When she entered the kitchen she saw the basement door was slightly ajar and the light had been left on. At first she thought nothing of it, but quickly changed her mind when she heard a strange noise coming from down below. Pushing the door open, she slowly and cautiously made her way down the stairs and looked around the room, not knowing what to expect. Nothing looked out of the ordinary and she couldn't figure out what it was she was hearing. The first thing that came to mind was that something must have been wrong with the containment unit, but she examined it and everything seemed to be in order.

Everything seemed fine and Benjamina was starting to consider the possibility that perhaps it was just her imagination. That, or the water heater or the air conditioner or something had just gotten noisier than the last time she was home. Just as she was about to go back upstairs, the noise grew louder and she turned back around, and it was then that she realized what the source of the commotion was.

Upstairs, the girls were unpacking their clothes and becoming familiar with their room again.

"It'll be good to get back into my old bed," Raynelle said.

"Me too, I've been using the same mattress for 17 years," Pauline said as she pounded her flat mattress, "Can't adjust to a newer one after that."

"Hey," Jewell looked to the door and then back at them, "I think we're missing somebody here. Where's Benjamina?"

"I don't know," Raynelle replied, "Wasn't she behind us?"

The floor beneath them started to shake as an explosion seemed to break loose from down below. The noise that followed was blood curdling and about enough to shatter everybody's eardrums as they heard Benjamina screaming in what had to be excruciating pain. The three other girls looked at each other with masks of horror on their faces as they realized where the fourth one of them was. When the room stopped rattling, they ran out the doorway and tore down the stairs to the first floor.

"Benjamina!" they called out as they raced through the house, trying to find her, "What happened? Where are you?"

Pauline skidded to a stop in the kitchen when she saw smoke leaking through the gap between the door and its frame. "She's in the basement!" she called to the other two.

Disregarding what might happen when they went down there, they stormed down the basement steps to find out what had happened, calling Benjamina's name the whole way down. They found her half sitting, half lying on the floor, her head down, her right hand on her cheek. It almost looked as though she were unconscious. They jumped down onto the floor beside her and shook her and tried to get her up.

"Benjamina, are you alright?" Jewell asked.

"Benjamina, what happened?" Pauline demanded to know.

She raised her head ever so slightly and without a word, pointed over to the workbench. Pauline went over to investigate what her friend was pointing at. Raynelle and Jewell stayed with Benjamina to make sure she was alright. She wouldn't, or couldn't, get to her feet, and she appeared to be dazed, or in shock, but otherwise she appeared to be normal.

"What happened?" Raynelle tried to find out.

But Benjamina wouldn't answer, she would only tell them that 'it' came from the other side of the room.

"Son…of a bitch!" Pauline exclaimed.

"What is it?" Raynelle got up and went over to Pauline's side to see what was the matter.

She got her answer when she saw lying in the middle of the workbench, a smoking, burnt black, ecto-containment trap which had both its doors blown wide open.


	4. Chapter 4

"I don't know what that thing is, but it's about to die all over again."

Acting on what seemed to be pure instinct; Pauline went over to the storage unit where their fathers had put away their proton packs many years ago. They hadn't gathered any dust in that time and looked as though they should still work. Given the shelf life Egon had incorporated into them during the initial design and creation, she didn't see any reason why they shouldn't work now and there was no time to worry about it anyway. She took one of the packs out, switched the power on and slipped the straps over her arms.

"Where did that thing go?" Raynelle asked.

"It disappeared through the ceiling," Benjamina explained.

"The ceiling?"

Everybody looked up and saw that whatever the thing was, it had to be pretty potent as it left black scorch marks on the center of the ceiling.

"But we didn't see it when we were coming down," Pauline noted.

"Wherever it is," Jewell said, "I don't think it could've gotten far…"

"Listen," Raynelle said, "Do you hear something?"

They were quiet and heard a low noise from somewhere off in the house. None of them knew what it was, but the noise seemed to grow louder, and louder, until finally they saw its source burst through the basement ceiling.

"Slimer!"

The large green spud zoomed past them and disappeared through the wall; immediately following behind him was the ghost that had escaped. He stopped halfway through the room and floated in midair and looked around at his audience. He was a full bodied ghost, gray from head to toe and the clothes he was apparently dressed in at the time of his demise suggested he came from the 1920s. His eyes glowed red and he came after Pauline. She opened fire on it and the particle beam hit the ghost and he thrashed around violently in the air, trying to break loose.

"Raynelle, get another trap!" she called.

Raynelle rushed over to the workbench, grabbed a trap that still looked to be in working condition, threw it out into the middle of the floor and stepped on the control to open it up. The doors opened and a bright light came out and quickly rose to the ceiling as the ghost shriveled and got sucked into the box, which promptly closed after it.

"We got it!" Pauline exclaimed.

"Great, now let's get rid of it," Benjamina jeered.

* * *

"What time is it?" Peter asked as they stepped in the door.

"Too damn late," Winston replied, "I told you we should've left earlier."

"It's 10 o' clock," Egon answered.

"I wonder if the girls got home," Ray commented.

"They should be, I saw Jewell's car when we drove in," Winston said.

"It's amazing how fast the garage was able to get the dents out of her car and ours," Peter said, "But for the arm and leg they charged us, I would've expected them fixed yesterday."

"Hey!" Winston hollered up the stairs, "Anybody up there?"

They heard no response from the second floor. However they did hear something from the vicinity directly beneath them.

"They wouldn't…" Ray started to say, but he knew better, "Oh yes they would."

They went through to the back of the kitchen by the basement door and saw smoke emanating up from the cellar. One by one they rushed down the stairs to find out what had gone wrong this time.

"What happened?" was the first thing Peter demanded to know as he got down there.

"Is everybody okay?" Winston asked.

"What's going on?" was what Egon and Ray wanted to know.

They saw their daughters over on the other side of the room. Jewell, Raynelle and Pauline were all standing straight and formal, looking straight ahead at their fathers. Benjamina was seated and holding a rag filled with ice on her cheek, looking somewhere between inconvenienced and embarrassed.

"Oh good, you're here," she said.

"What happened down here?" Peter asked.

She hesitated in answering but she finally told him, "A ghost."

"What?" Egon asked.

"The ghost that was in that trap," Pauline pointed to the blackened and misshapen trap that was still smoking, "Broke out and attacked her."

Egon's jaw dropped and he couldn't say anything; he was too shocked.

"What?" Peter wasn't sure what he'd heard.

"We got home and I came down here because I heard something…I thought you left one of the machines running," Benjamina answered, "The trap was moving from side to side and it exploded and a ghost got out of it and he came at me."

"Where is it now?" Winston asked.

"In the containment unit," Pauline answered.

"How'd it get there?" Peter asked.

"We put it there," she and Raynelle answered.

"Are you hurt?" Ray asked Benjamina.

"Oh no," she said as she stood up, "Just singed a little piece of my face off, no problem."

The men crowded around her trying to take a look at the damage. She was hesitant but they talked her into taking off her glasses and she started to slowly remove the makeshift icepack.

"Let's just take a look at this," Peter was right in front of her as the ice came off, "OH MY GOD!" he screamed. Everybody immediately panicked when they heard Peter. A second later he laughed and said reassuringly to Benjamina, "No, it's just a little burn, I'm kidding."

Egon grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. "How did this happen?" he asked when he saw the burn mark on her face.

"I don't know," she shook her head, "It all happened so fast…"

"But he definitely left his mark on the place," Jewell said and pointed up, "Look at that."

They saw the scorch marks on the ceiling and none of them knew what to make of it.

"What did it look like?" Egon asked.

"Oh I don't know, he was tall, he was thin…" Benjamina started to explain.

"If I had to guess," Pauline said, "I'd say a class six free roaming, full torso…full body actually, apparition with miniscule vaporous components." When she saw everybody looking at her she quickly added, "It was a man, young looking, looked like he came from the 1920s, specifically he looked like he resided in the state when he was alive. You can see him in the chamber."

Egon went over to the containment unit and looked in. The ghost they'd described was on the other end of the spy holes looking back at him. He remembered it from one of their last cases before they quit the business.

"This is horrible," he said.

"No it's okay, Uncle Egon," Pauline said, "We did everything by the book, I zapped him, Ray trapped him, we put the trap in the unit and we got the green light. He can't get out."

"He wasn't supposed to be out in the first place," Egon told them, "This is my fault."

The girls looked at each other, unable to figure out what he meant.

"Egon," Jewell started to say.

"Don't bother your Uncle Egon when he's having a nervous breakdown," Peter said.

"Come on, girls," Winston said as he took Benjamina by the arm, "Let's see what we can do about that burn."

Once they had gone upstairs, Peter went over to his friend and asked him, "Are you alright, Egon?"

Egon just looked straight ahead and shook his head.

"Hey, what's this?" Ray asked.

The other two turned to see what he was talking about. Ray stood over at one of their worktables and they saw that part of the surface was gone…it looked like somebody had dripped acid over it and there were round holes showing where the fiberglass had been eaten away. Looking up, they saw that the holes in the table were directly beneath the scorch marks in the ceiling.

"Egon," Peter said, "What the hell was that thing?"

* * *

It was after one in the morning before everything was settled down. Egon was working down in the basement when Peter came down the stairs to see how things were going.

"Is she alright?" Egon asked. He seemed to ask that every few minutes since he last saw his daughter about an hour ago.

"Yeah, Winston got her face done up with burn cream and bandages, she's sleeping on the couch at the moment."

"I took some samples from that stuff we found on the ceiling and the table…if this is what that thing used on her, she's lucky she only got the minor burn she did," Egon said.

"What the hell is that stuff?" Peter wanted to know.

"Ectoplasmic residue…far stronger than any I've seen before, though."

"Exactly, how did it get like that?"

"I don't know," Egon shook his head hopelessly, "I just don't know."

"Well," they heard Ray come down the stairs, "Everything's cooled down upstairs. How're things going down here?"

"Not good," Egon answered.

"Where the hell did that thing come from?" Peter asked.

"The trap," Ray answered, "Yesterday it occurred to us that we might have forgotten to empty all the traps when we quit using them. We were going to go through them and find out but…we forgot."

"I blame myself," Egon said.

"You do a lot of that," Peter noted, "But how did that thing get out of the trap?"

"Fatigue is the only thing I can think of," Egon told him, "Imagine that thing trying to get out of this thing every day, year after year after year. We never keep ghosts in the traps anymore than is necessary to transport them to the containment unit. They weren't really meant to sustain ghosts for that long."

"Meanwhile this thing somehow got stronger over the years until he just blew the thing up and busted out of it," Peter said, "But how did it do that?"

"I don't know," Ray replied, "That's part of why we wanted to analyze the ghosts in the unit if we could…we don't know why one is a class five and another is a class seven, we don't know why some of them are vapors and some are full torso manifestations…there's so much about them that we don't know."

"Well I sincerely hope that whatever happened with the trap, we don't have a repeat performance with the containment unit," Peter told them.

"I highly doubt that, Peter…the traps were made for short term concealment and transportation of the ghosts, the unit was made to hold them indefinitely."

"Well I hope you're right, Egon," Peter said, "Because I don't know about you guys but I'm too old to go chasing after all the same ghosts for the third time."

* * *

It was morning when Egon finally left the basement. He'd spent the whole night looking over the samples he'd taken and it still didn't make sense. The sunlight was pouring in the windows and the house was quiet. He guessed it had been that way for hours and he just hadn't noticed. It was early enough that everybody should've still been asleep. He entered the living room and saw Benjamina asleep on the couch. Her cheek was covered with a white bandage patch and he dreaded thinking about what the burn might look like today. He still couldn't figure it out; he didn't understand any of what had happened last night and he wasn't any closer to finding the answers now than he had been when it happened.

In the middle of his mental tirade, he realized that his daughter was awake and looking up at him.

"Hi, Daddy," she said.

"How're you feeling, kid?" he asked.

"I'm okay," she replied as she put on her glasses and sat up, "Did you find out what that thing was that got out of the trap?" Benjamina asked.

He nodded, "About 90 years ago that was Louie "The Hook" Pritchard, a small time criminal who never got to Chicago. He was gunned down by the police in 1924 in the Bowery. We caught him ten years ago but forgot to deposit him in the containment unit. I can only imagine that for all the time he stayed in the trap, he kept trying to get out until something finally took."

"Well," she replied, "You never said the traps were foolproof."

"They're not supposed to explode like that but on the other hand we never tested them to see just how long they could hold anything. We just assumed they could last as long as the containment unit," Egon said.

"Something about it all doesn't make any sense though," Benjamina told, "You always told us that ghosts, especially the lower class ones, couldn't hurt people…well what about this?" she pointed to her cheek.

"I don't know…up till now it was impossible for them by their own means to hurt somebody. Unless they picked something up and threw it, there wasn't much damage they could do to people…but now…I don't know what's going on, but I intend to find out," Egon told her.

* * *

"So did you check everything?" Peter asked later that morning when they were all gathered in the basement.

"Yeah, we ran the rest of the traps through the system," Winston said as he put the last one back on the workbench, "They're all empty."

"Good, that's the last thing we need," Peter said, "More of them getting out and terrorizing everybody in the house…never mind scaring the hell out of the whole city again."

"Well, that's highly unlikely now," Egon told him, "They're all in the containment unit and accounted for, and they're going to stay there until further notice."

Jewell looked at the ghosts roaming around inside the chamber. "Looks ugly in there."

"And you can be sure if they can see us," Pauline commented, "They're probably thinking the same thing about out here."

She went over to where the damaged trap was and picked it up. "Think it can be fixed, Uncle Egon?"

She tossed it to him, he caught it and despite having all night to cool off, was still hot around the edges.

"Absolutely not," he replied, then he thought about it, "Maybe. I want to get this thing out of here and examine it."

"I think we all saw that one coming," Peter said as he and Winston followed Egon up the stairs.

"Good ol' Egon, can't ever turn down a challenge," Pauline said.

Benjamina went over to the containment unit and looked in. "It's hard to believe that they managed to catch all these things for no longer than they were working."

"I'll say," Raynelle commented, "A shame to see the business go."

"Maybe it doesn't have to," Pauline said.

The other girls were looking at her.

"What're you talking about?" Jewell asked.

"Well you heard Egon say he was going to work on something that would extract one ghost at a time from the unit? Well, nobody's calling in about ghosts but maybe we could get a couple out at a time and unleash them back into society, and then they'd have to go back into business again," Pauline said, "It worked for the Three Stooges."

"Pauline, that's a horrible thing to say," Raynelle told her.

"Well it's true, let's face it, Raynelle," Benjamina said, "Our fathers _were_ the Three Stooges of the paranormal, then Winston joined. Besides, it wouldn't be so bad if they were pulled out of retirement…everybody knows this isn't what they wanted. This isn't how they wanted to go out…ignored, 'services no longer requested', nobody wants that. But nobody's calling anymore, and why? I refuse to believe that New York has suddenly run out of ghosts, so what's going on?"

* * *

"Exactly how long are you figuring we're going to need to monitor those things downstairs?" Winston asked.

"I think it would be a good idea to arrange a time pattern, certain times of the day, same times each day, for the first experiment anyway," Egon replied as he fiddled with the trap, "I'm interested in seeing how all the ghosts in the containment unit interact with each other. They're dead but a lot of them don't realize it, they think they're still alive, so their behavioral patterns, some of them anyway, are going to be just like they're still alive."

"And being from New York," Peter said, "That means most of them are probably going to be flipping obscene gestures at one another and trying to choke the life out of everybody they encounter."

He was about to add to that comment when he, and the other three guys, heard the basement door open and their daughters coming out of the kitchen, hurrying past them and muttering 'goodbye'.

"Where're you going?" Winston asked his daughter.

"I'm going to see about finding a place for rent near here," Jewell answered.

"I have an appointment," Raynelle said as she scurried past the others.

"I have one too, at the dentist's," Benjamina said, "For the next half hour I'm going to be laid back while some quack jerks my molar out with a flathead screwdriver and no privilege of nitrous oxide. And for that service they charge eighty bucks?"

Peter saw his daughter trying to slip past them and he grabbed her by the back of her shirt and pulled her back.

"And where," he asked, "Do you think you're going?"

"Who me?" she asked, "I'm going to see if there's a job available in this town. And if I play my cards right, I should be done pounding the pavement in time to catch the latest nuclear war movie at the theater."

"Oh, okay," Peter let go of her, "Have a good time."

When the door closed, Peter turned back to Egon and asked, "So what time would you recommend we start watching the little creepers?"

"Oh, I'd say," Egon looked at his watch, "Two o' clock would be a good start."

"Why two o' clock?" Winston asked.

"Probably because we're running on Daylight Savings time now," Peter guessed.

* * *

That afternoon, Pauline had finished looking for a job for one day; found three offers and all of them telling her to get the hell out, so she headed over to the movie theater. It was nearing two o' clock and the first show would be starting soon. After that she'd return home and see how things were going for her father and his friends. Though if she knew them, and after this long she did, whatever they were doing, it wouldn't be pretty.

She reached the theater and headed in. The lobby was empty at the moment save for the ushers working behind the counter.

"Can I help you?" one of them asked her when she reached the front of the velvet rope line.

"Yes," she replied, "I'd like one ticket to…"

Before she could finish, she and the ushers heard a noise coming from somewhere off in the theater. They turned and saw a crowd of moviegoers running off from some corner of the building and trying to get out. Pauline pushed past everybody running in the opposite direction and went to see where it was they were all coming from and what was the matter. Turning the corner she saw they had just come out of movie room five, so she went in, not sure what to expect.

The room was dark. Completely dark. The movie wasn't playing, the film wasn't even rolling. Even the lights that were supposed to be on along the stairs leading the balcony seats weren't on. Nor was the neon fire EXIT sign at the other end of the room. Pauline looked around in the dark and couldn't see anything; but it felt like a large fan had been turned on and was aimed right at her.

Suddenly, there was a noise from the projection booth as the film started to roll again. The screen was gray and snowy but no picture came on. The sound of the film rolling from one reel to another was starting to sound disgusting, repulsive…nerve wracking. However, the screen offered some light into the theater room, which still didn't explain why everybody had run out panic stricken. She looked left and right, up and down, at the balcony seats and the floor seats. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. And then, she heard a loud noise from behind like something crashing. She turned and saw one of the balcony seats had gone flying and hit the wall. Then another popped up and fell over. Then another, and another.

Pauline inched her way back so that the next thing that happened didn't knock her down the stairs. She didn't know what was going on but she had an idea she was about to find out. Another chair went flying and she saw somebody move from where it had been bolted to the floor. With just the light of the screen to see the vandal by, he looked to be a tall, skinny man somewhere in his early 20s, and he was trying to get away.

"Hey!"

Pauline chased after the man who ran down the stairs on the opposite side. He made it to the floor and ran, she ran after him. She grabbed him by his jacket and jerked him around and clenched her hands on his lapels. It was then that she realized it wasn't just the blank screen giving this young man a grayish glow. The look on his face made it clear he wasn't pleased by the way he was being treated and with his teeth snarling at her, he grabbed her by the neck and Pauline felt a series of terrible electrical shocks charging through her body; as the face of the man responsible seemed to dimmer and fade away, as everything else around her turned to black.


	5. Chapter 5

"I forgot to tell you something," Jewell said as she came rushing down the basement stairs.

Egon and Ray looked up from where they were working near the containment unit when they heard her charging down the steps.

"I thought you'd left," Ray said as he headed over to her.

"I just remembered something from last night," she said as she tried to catch her breath, "You said that you were going to watch the ghosts in the containment unit to see how they act with each other, right?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Last night when that one broke out of the trap," she said, "He chased after Slimer. I don't know what happened with those two but Slimer came tearing through the room and that thing was following right after him. And whatever he was and whatever he did, it scared Slimer so bad he wouldn't come down from the attic…I didn't know ghosts could be scared."

"To all our known knowledge about them, they couldn't be," Egon told her as he continued looking in at the other trapped spirits, "But that's what these experiments are for. To find the answers to what we don't know."

"Let's see, Slimer's a class five vapor, that thing from last night is a class six manifestation," Ray was already starting the calculations in his head.

"Uncle Egon," Jewell tugged on his sleeve, "Slimer's not very strong so how is he a class five? I mean if he's a five, what the hell would a class one be, a phantom mosquito?"

"Intriguingly enough," Egon replied, "During our career as Ghostbusters we never caught too many things lower than a class five, class one was the rarest of all to encounter."

"And the highest is class ten?"

"As far as we know it is," he answered.

* * *

The front door opened and Benjamina stepped in, closed the door behind her and leaned against it.

"Rough day at the dentist?" Jewell asked from her spot on the couch.

Over the gauze she got out a muffled, "Yeah."

"Must've been, you were gone over two hours," Jewell said.

Benjamina grunted and moaned a lot as she made her way through the living room and stubbed her foot against a large pile of books.

"What do you have all these out for?" she asked.

"To annoy Uncle Egon, you know what he said, print is dead…hmmmm," a thought came to Jewell, "That's an interesting choice of words for a Ghostbuster, isn't it?"

"Are the others back yet?" Benjamina asked.

"Raynelle got back a little while ago…Pauline's not back yet but then again that doesn't surprise me."

"Where are the others?" Benjamina asked.

"Down in the basement watching the ghosts, of course," Jewell said.

"How's that going, anyway?" Benjamina wanted to know.

"Two hours," Peter said as he, Ray and Egon came into the living room, "And those miserable creatures haven't done one damn thing worth recording."

"I don't know about that, Peter," Ray told him, "I find it intriguing that for all the time we observed them, they seemed to make all possible effort to avoid each other. You don't find that odd at all, that none of the ectoplasmic manifestations try to make contact with one another?"

"Would you?" Peter asked in response.

"Well…"

"This may contribute to our theory that different class specters choose to keep to themselves," Egon said.

"No doubt, but what's it all amount to, Uncle Egon?" Jewell asked.

"Hi, Daddy," Benjamina said over the gauze.

"Hello, how did it go?"

"Oh about as planned…he jabs three needles into my gums then puts the gas mask over my nose and I spend a half hour taking in laughing gas while he's tearing enamel away from gum tissue with the flathead screwdriver he calls a set of pliers. Then he turns on the drill, and for all that he charges $130. It's a racket. How's your experiment going?"

"Well…"

Egon's response was cut off when they heard Raynelle screaming from the front yard. They ran to the door, went out on the porch and were stunned and horrified beyond words to see Pauline beating the hell out of Raynelle, who was struggling and trying to get away. Pauline jerked her back by her hair and pounded flat into her face, knocking her to the ground, then she tried putting Raynelle in a choke hold. She pulled Raynelle up by her arm and beat her across the face again; but the rest of her plans were cut short when she herself was knocked to the ground by Jewell, who had hopped over the railing and ambushed her.

"What the HELL is the matter with you?" Jewell grabbed Pauline and jerked her to her feet and shook her violently and slapped her in the face repeatedly as the next words out of her mouth were loud and phonetic like a drill sergeant, "Have-you-done-gone-lost-your-MIND?" She shook Pauline again, "What's the matter with you?"

Pauline opened her eyes and saw Jewell, then looked to the ground and saw Raynelle, who was starting to get up. She didn't seem to understand what had happened. But before she could say anything, Jewell shoved her and told her to get away and put some distance between the two of them.

"Yes," she said as she started to walk off.

Jewell, apparently still caught up in her military training, smacked Pauline upside of her head and told her, "You say 'yes _ma'am_' when you speak to me!"

"Yes ma'am," Pauline said as she headed for the driveway and went around to the back. Only a few seconds passed before Jewell started to follow her around to the back door.

Raynelle got up to the porch and her father and uncles were pulling her this way and that trying to get a look at her and take in the damage, and were asking her if she was alright.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she insisted, "I don't know what got into her, though."

"What did you say to her?" Benjamina asked.

"Nothing," she said, "Nothing that would provoke that anyway."

Jewell stepped in the back door and saw her father in the kitchen. She was huffing and puffing and looked like she'd already been through a day from hell.

"It's official," she said, "I am _never_ having kids."

"Well, what do you know?" Winston said with a bit of a chuckle, "I can breathe for the first time in 13 years."

"Ha-ha-ha," she dryly remarked as she went over to the fridge and got a beer.

"What happened?" Winston asked.

"I don't know…Pauline got home a few minutes ago and she started trying to kill Raynelle."

"Those two always fought," Winston said.

"Not to the death, Daddy," she told him, "You didn't see it, she had Raynelle's throat in a death grip and she was hitting her…" she balled her hand into a fist and beat it against her other palm, "Right in the face…I had to pull her off Raynelle and knock some sense into her. Now she's acting like she doesn't remember any of it."

"Where's she now?"

"Well she came in here, I thought she'd still be here," Jewell told him, "You didn't see her?"

"No, but then again I just got here myself," he replied, "Where does Pauline usually get to when she's in trouble?"

* * *

Pauline was throwing her things back into her suitcase when she heard the knocking on the door.

"I don't want to talk about it," she said.

The door opened and Egon stuck his head in, "It's just me."

"Oh," she replied, "Good, I thought it was Dad…how's Raynelle?"

"She's okay," Egon told her, "A little confused about what happened."

"Yeah, that makes two of us," Pauline said, "I'm sorry that I hit her but I honestly don't know what happened. It was like…like I'd become my own case study, demonic possession."

"Pauline," Egon said, "What happened before you came home?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean right before you came home, did anything unusual happen?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she shook her head, "I went all around town looking for a job. I couldn't get one, so…I came home."

"What about the movie?" Egon asked.

She looked at him, "What movie?"

"You said that you…" the gears were starting to turn in Egon's head, "Pauline…if you wouldn't mind coming down to the basement, I think I'd like a chance to pick at your brain…maybe I can find out what's going on."

"You can go ahead and try," she said, "I don't know what's going on but I'll try anything to make it stop. What do you have in mind?"

* * *

That night Pauline lay unconscious on a worktable in the basement while Egon and Ray performed a series of tests to find out the root of this particular problem.

"It's very interesting," Egon said as he looked at a slide under a microscope.

"What've you got?" Ray asked.

Before Egon could answer, they heard Peter pound on the door a couple of times as he entered and came down the stairs.

"You guys have been down here for four hours, what's going on?" he demanded to know.

"We're trying to find out what made Pauline attack Raynelle this afternoon," Egon said.

"And if we're right," Ray added, "We could have the answer for why she KO'ed her boss at the cab company."

"She what?" Peter asked.

He went over to the table and saw Pauline wasn't responding to their voices. She looked like she was dead to the world.

"What did you give her, Thorazine?" he asked as he noticed her lack of overall bodily movement. Even for being in a state of sleep it was eerie how still she was.

"Temazepam," Egon answered.

Peter looked over at him, "Strong stuff. Now would somebody mind explaining to me what the hell is going on?"

"Well for one thing," Ray told him, "Pauline got fired from the taxi company because she got into a fight with her boss and she punched him. She did that after he confronted her about getting into a head on collision with another car. A car which several eyewitnesses reported did _not_ stop or crash into the taxi, but went through it and kept on going. Our theory is that she didn't tell you that when she got here because she honestly had no recollection of it…just as she didn't know why she started pummeling Raynelle when she got home."

"However," Egon said, "We've stumbled across some very unusual findings over the past few hours."

"What kind of findings?" Peter wanted to know.

"We took a blood sample from her…we have to assume the most logical things first as hard as that is…so we decided to see if any drugs or medication would show up in her system…nothing…however I found something _very_ interesting in the first exhibit I examined." Egon replaced the current slide on the microscope's slate with another one, "Take a look for yourself."

Peter bent over the microscope, closed one eye and looked down and saw a mess of blood cells.

"Yeck," he observed, "You actually enjoy looking at this stuff?"

"Take a closer look, Peter," Egon said.

Peter wasn't sure what it was he was supposed to be looking for…but the harder he looked, he noticed something that even he knew didn't belong. Amidst the thick collection of blood cells he saw something long and thin and very pale.

"Looks like a tapeworm," Peter looked up from the slide, "What is it?"

"We had to take extreme caution in extracting a sample of that without taking any of the blood sample with it…we put it on another slide and examined it…"

Peter could tell by the troubled expression on his always serious friend's face that it wasn't good.

"What is it?" he demanded to know.

"A strand of the genetic makeup of ectoplasm," Egon answered.

Okay, where was Allen Funt? He was on Candid Camera or something, he had to be. There was no way that what they were saying was…

"Are you serious?" he couldn't help asking.

"You know I'm always serious," Egon told him.

"And that's always been your worst feature," Peter replied, "What are you talking about?"

"We double checked it, Peter," Ray broke in, "There's no mistake about it…we compared it to a previous example we took in one of our last cases and kept it stored away for preservation until further research could be conducted on it. It's ectoplasm."

"Alright," Peter said, not liking what he was hearing, "You're both so smart, you tell me what the hell is going on here."

"This is a particularly potent strand of ectoplasm," Egon started to explain, "Remember the river of slime? How it was generated by human emotions and was especially explosive when somebody had a violent outburst?"

"You're not going to tell me this is like that," Peter said.

"Quite the opposite…most of the ghosts in existence either don't know they're dead or are fuming for eternity that they are…their negative vibes generate through them in the ectoplasm and when it got into Pauline's system it took over _her_," Ray responded, "She didn't notice it was Raynelle she was beating the hell out of, she just knew there was an irresistible impulse in her to lash out and hit the first thing or person she could find. We suspect there was a similar outburst right before she got fired."

"When this specifically potent type of ectoplasm enters the human body it's like radiation poisoning," Egon explained to Peter, "The more you take in the sooner you're effected, and the worse the effects are…which lead us to believe that whatever got to her…it might not have been too strong but it's more likely that it left shortly afterwards. She was of herself long enough to get home before starting any trouble, then she just lost it…and then she was herself again after only a few moments."

Peter's head was spinning from this sudden explosion of information he was probably better off not knowing.

"So what're you going to do now?" he asked, "What can you do to help her?"

"It doesn't look like we'll have to do anything," Ray said, "We've been taking blood samples every hour to check the process…and the last one shows the ectoplasm has just about disappeared out of her system."

"Since ectoplasm comes from the dead and it generates on the vibes of the dead, it can't survive long in a living body," Egon explained, "Slowly it expires itself because it can't stand the surroundings of flowing blood, a pumping heart, air being taken into the lungs…"

"Well that's a relief," Peter said in his usual deadpan tone, "Are you sure that's the extent of it?"

"As far as we can tell thus far," Egon said, "But there's something else that worries me."

"What?"

"Think about it, Peter," Ray told him, "In the last two days Pauline has had two experiences with the supernatural…and they're worse this time…these ghosts have gotten so strong that they can do actual damage to people."

"Well then we're just going to have to trap them," Peter said, "What's the problem?"

"The problem is all afternoon I asked Pauline where she was today before she came home, and she doesn't remember," Egon answered, "Ectoplasm appears to effect the memory as well as the body…short term amnesia, she doesn't seem to have any recollection about where she was or what happened at the time that it entered her system."

"Which leaves the question," Peter realized, "How do we find these things if we don't know where to look?"

"I've got an idea," Egon mentioned, "Before the Temazepam fully set in, she started talking…it didn't seem like anything coherent but I decided we'd better get down anything and everything she says during the night, so…" he pointed towards a tape recorder on a table next to the one Pauline was sleeping on. Until that moment Peter hadn't noticed it, but he could see the wheels on the tape slowly turning as every sound made within the basement was recorded.

"Unfortunately that stuff's supposed to keep people from waking up in the night," Ray said, "However as we all know a person doesn't have to be awake to talk…in the night, subconsciously she might remember what happened and say it, and if she does, we'll have something to work with."

"I should've seen this coming," Peter said as he shook his head and went for the stairs.

"What do you mean?" Ray asked.

Peter turned back around and looked at his friends as he said, "Isn't it obvious? She never had chickenpox when she was a kid. I should've known when she got older she'd get something far worse."

* * *

Ray woke up when he realized he was mumbling to himself, and when he opened his eyes he also realized he was laying on one of the tables in the basement. Still not quite all there, he turned over and fell off the table and onto Egon who had fallen asleep on the floor.

"What happened?" Egon asked as he put on his glasses.

Ray tried to think and he remembered, "Last night before the tape in the recorder ran out, Pauline started talking in her sleep and you tried to figure out what she was saying. Let's see if it's still on the machine."

They both got to their feet and found Pauline still dead to the world. Egon hit the rewind button on the recorder and let the tape spin back to where he thought was the right place. Then he pressed the play button and they listened carefully.

"_Where did you go this afternoon?"_ Egon asked on the tape.

"_I went to look for a job,"_ Pauline had answered in her sleep, _"I didn't find one."_

"_Do you remember where you went after that?"_ Egon had asked her.

"_I walked a long ways,"_ she had said.

"_Do you know where you walked to?"_

"_I went…I went to see a movie…I went to the theater."_

"_Which theater?"_

"_The one on 42__nd__ Street."_

"_What happened there?"_ Egon had asked.

"_I went in and…all these people screaming, running for the exit. I went in to see what was the matter…it was dark…I felt…there was a strong breeze…the projector started running the film…and the balcony seats jumped up and went flying through the room…"_

"_Then what happened?"_

"_I saw a man…he jumped out of the balcony and tried to get out but I ran after him…I grabbed him…he turned around and grabbed me…that's all I remember."_

"_What about afterwards?" _Egon asked,_ "When you got home, do you remember what happened?"_

"_Raynelle was on the porch…talking about me dropping out of school…and I just couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to kill her, so I charged her, and I pulled her off of the porch and threw her…she rolled onto the lawn and I tried to kill her…but I don't know why."_

"_One more thing, what do you remember about the man in the theater?"_

"_He was young…tall…thin…he looked…almost like the ghost that broke out of the trap. Only this guy looked like he died recently, he was dressed more modern."_

"_But he was a ghost? You're sure of that?"_

"_He had to be…you don't look like that when you're alive…not on purpose anyway."_

* * *

"Are you serious about this?" Peter asked when the others had told him what they'd found out.

"When Pauline woke up today we played back the tape for her to hear, and she remembered the theater on 42nd Street," Ray told him, "She's going to come with us and show us where it all happened."

"We're coming too!" they heard Raynelle announce.

Peter slipped on his proton pack and took a few minutes to get reacquainted with the weight. Then he thought to turn around and ask her, "What?"

"I know you don't want to hear it, Dad," Pauline said, "But I think whatever's in that building is going to be more than just the four of you can take."

"Ha!" Peter jeered, "Don't make me laugh."

"It's no joke, Uncle Peter," Benjamina said as she and the other girls entered, "We took a vote. If these things have gotten strong enough to actually hurt people, then we're all coming…that way there's a better chance to trap the things before they can reach anybody."

"Egon, can you believe this?" Peter turned to see Egon had a very uncomfortable look on his face.

"Actually, Peter…I'm inclined to agree on this one."

"When did I become the only logical one around here?" Peter asked, "Oh well, everybody who's in favor of this nightmare, suit up and head for the car."

Each put on a proton pack and grabbed a trap and headed out of the basement and outside to the Ectomobile. Ray started the engine and they sped out of there and went tearing down the street.


	6. Chapter 6

The Ectomobile raced through town as the occupants grew anxious to reach the theater on 42nd Street. Egon was driving, Ray and Peter were beside him in the front and Winston was in the back with the girls as they watched the scenery outside the windows zoom on by.

"Uncle Egon," Jewell said as she leaned on the front seats, "By chance have you been taking driving lessons from Uncle Ray?"

Egon jerked the wheel to the right and just avoided slamming into an oncoming car that sped by them. Unfortunately he turned too fast and too hard and the car bashed against a sign post as he had stepped on the brakes. Everybody in the car was jumbled into a series of pretzels and each was trying to straighten out. Egon pulled his head out of the steering wheel and picked his leg up from off the dashboard and tried to get the kink out of his neck.

"Ray, are you okay?" he asked as he felt his teeth which he was sure had loosened in the crash.

"I guess," Ray replied as he pulled his foot out from under Peter's armpit, "Are you okay?"

"I don't know," Egon shook his head, "Peter, how about you?"

Peter was sandwiched between Ray and the door on his side and he felt his face being flattened like a pancake.

"I'm fine," he weakly answered.

Winston had doubled over and hit his stomach against the top of the front seat and was leaning over it, and he felt terrible. He pulled himself back and fell against his seat and saw the girls were all smashed together as well.

"How're you guys?" he asked.

"I think I lost a filling," Raynelle said.

"I think I broke my tattoo," Jewell added.

Pauline pulled her head out of a narrow crook between Jewell who she smashed into, and the door on her side, and she hollered out the window, "Go back to Jersey you moron!"

"Spread out!" Benjamina exclaimed as she pushed at Jewell and Raynelle, "You're squishing me!"

"Is everybody here accounted for?" Peter asked.

"Yes."

"Alright then, Egon, keep driving…we'll take in the body damage later."

Egon started the car again and they continued down 40th Street. When they reached the theater on 42nd, they went in each wearing a pack and carrying a trap or two in hand.

"I wonder how many there are," Benjamina thought aloud as they went in.

"Well we'll soon find out," Jewell said.

They entered the theater and looked around the front lobby. So far everything seemed normal, except the ushers looked more than just a little nervous.

"What do you say, Egon?" Peter asked, "Find anything?"

Egon took out his PKE meter and noticed that so far the lights weren't flashing and the antennae were drooping like a basset hound's ears.

"Not here," Pauline told him, "It happened further in the back."

"Where?" Ray asked.

"In the fifth movie room."

They followed Pauline down the lobby and it wasn't long before they came face to face with a stiff in a business suit and a bad tie.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Are you the manager?" Peter asked.

"Yes."

"Well we heard that there have been some complaints about one of your screen rooms so we thought we'd come and do you a favor," Peter told him.

"Don't worry," Jewell assured the manager, "They've been doing this for over 20 years, by now they've learned how to avoid setting the room in question on fire."

The manager's eyes widened in dread as he heard that and he was left speechless as they continued down the hall.

"Here we are," Ray said, "Movie room five."

Egon checked the PKE meter again and found the antennae had shot up like rabbit ears in a publicity photo.

"Alright, brace yourselves, whatever's in there it likes to throw things, particularly the balcony seats," Pauline told them as she grabbed the handle on the door and pulled it open.

Cautiously, they stepped into the room one by one. The room was dark and quiet, so far everything seemed to be normal. The lights by the stairwell were working and everything was back in place. The Ghostbusters went up to the balcony seats to take a look at the damage for themselves and couldn't find any. Pauline followed behind them and she was dumbstruck at how things had changed since she was there only yesterday. Raynelle, Benjamina and Jewell stayed on the ground floor incase whatever was causing trouble came down there.

"Now, Pauline," Winston was trying to figure this out, "You said these were the seats that were being thrown around in here?"

"Yes," she said, "They just went flying through the air."

"That's impossible," Peter told her, "They're bolted to the floor."

The film started to play and the screen lit up the room. Winston walked up and down the rows and saw the mess that remained. "Whatever happened, everybody sure left in a hurry," he said, "There's popcorn and candy everywhere and…" he picked up a paper cup and sniffed the contents, "Flat cola."

The PKE meter's screen was lighting up like Las Vegas, "Something's definitely here," Egon told them, "But where?"

"Geez it's cold in here," Peter said all of a sudden, "Did the air conditioning come on?"

There was a strong breeze in the room, and Pauline recognized the sound it made like a large electric fan.

"It's starting again," she told them.

"What is?" Peter asked.

He got his answer when out of nowhere a cup of soda went flying and hit him in his face.

"Hey!" he yelled, "I don't like diet."

"Looks like we're dealing with a poltergeist," Ray noted.

The gust that blew through the room was growing stronger and now was at speeds of what must have been 40 miles an hour. To the eight people in the room it felt like being stuck outside in the middle of a windstorm.

"Look out!" Pauline shouted, "They're starting to move again!"

Peter turned and saw several of the theater seats jiggling from side to side and he could very well see them taking off through the air in a few seconds, so he ducked down and waited to see what would happen next. Winston and Ray got down close to the floor as well. Egon stayed where he was and watched with growing anticipation to find out what was to come next.

One of the middle row seats shot straight into the air like a space shuttle taking off. Everybody ducked and tried to get out of the way when it came down and made a crash landing. Then another came loose from the floor and went up and flying through the movie room and hit the wall. Soon, several of the chairs had loosened from their bolts and went floating throughout the room, crashing into this wall or that, each time just narrowly missing hitting the Ghostbusters. Pauline was slowly inching her way to the top of the stairs to see if the thing that she grabbed yesterday was making another appearance. From where Egon stood he saw one of the lights come loose from the wall and went flying at her.

"Pauline, look out!"

He ran over to the other side of the balcony floor and grabbed her and they both hit the floor and just missed being hit by a light that smashed into the wall and shattered into a hundred pieces. However all was not well for those two as when they hit the floor, they lost their footing and fell down the stairs and came to a crash landing at the foot of the staircase.

"My hero," Pauline dryly commented as she got up and headed back for the balcony.

The winds were blowing harder than before and it was almost enough to literally move somebody across the room. Raynelle and Jewell headed up the stairs, every step a fight against the wind pressure, a struggle not to fall back the way they had come. They got to the first row and carefully made their way over to their fathers.

"If we can't see it," Jewell said, almost yelling by now to be heard over the moaning gusts, "How do we get it in the trap?"

"That's a good question!" Peter said, "Ray, you want to take this one?"

Egon was making his way back up the stairs with Benjamina following behind him and they had almost made it to the others when there was an explosion of blinding white light from the middle of the room. Immediately following that, out of the spot where the explosion occurred there came out over a dozen white and gray full torso free floaters flying this way and that, screaming and grabbing at things, and trying, it appeared, to dive bomb the Ghostbusters.

"Now!" Peter called.

The power of eight nuclear accelerators came to life simultaneously and the particle streams raced up into the air and caught some of the apparitions in their electrified grasps. They howled, struggled and writhed trying to get loose, all to no avail. However the real problem lay in the fact that there were more ghosts than could be trapped at one time. One of the more accurately termed free floaters zoomed overhead and came back around and lowered itself, aiming for Jewell.

Remembering what they had said about these particular ghosts and what they could do to a person, Jewell stepped back without looking and she bumped against her father, knocking both of them off balance and they fell over the railing for the balcony and hit the floor seats below.

"Winston!" Egon called, not taking his eyes or his mind off the matter at hand for a fraction of a second, "Are you okay?"

"I'm alright, but that would've been more fun 20 years ago," he commented as he pulled himself up.

Benjamina and Raynelle threw out some of the traps and managed to get them almost _right_ beneath the ghosts that were ready for putting away into storage. They stepped on the controls and the traps opened, dragging the resisting manifestations down into the boxes as the lids closed behind them.

One of the ghosts that was still bouncing around the room like a pinball, seemed to stop in midair and look down at them. He set his sights on Raynelle and charged at her. She jumped out of the way and slipped down the stairs but managed to catch herself about halfway down and for a minute she stayed where she was. The ghost went over her head and flew down to the ground floor and hovered over Jewell, harassing her while she tried to get up. Jewell, who was in no joking mood after the fall, looked up at the thing and when it made weird taunting noises at her, she screamed at it in a high pitched tone that scared the hell out of it and sent it flying back up towards the balcony. When it resurfaced near the top, it got caught in the stream from Ray's particle thrower.

"Nice work, Jewell!" he bellowed from above.

Another ghost reached the ceiling and stopped where he was. Looking directly below, he saw Peter and declared him an easy target. He zoomed down at Peter, who realized this and screamed in a manner similar to when he and Slimer first met. At the last second, he pulled the trigger on the particle thrower and caught it.

"Works every time," he said, sounding ever so full of himself, "Well boys, you have to get up _pretty_ early in the morning to ambush Dr. Venkman."

He stepped on the control of another trap and it sucked the annoying ectoplasmic bugger into it and closed up, smoking heavily.

Three more seemed to just crawl out of the wall at that moment and they sped towards Peter. He hit the floor and aimed at them and was about to zap them when he saw a bright light fill the room and the three dead nitwits got pulled down into another trap. A trap Raynelle had thrown up the stairs and pounded her fist on the control to open it up.

When that was over it looked like the job might be done. There wasn't any sight of another ghost or any unusual behavior going on in the room.

"Well that was fun," Peter said, "Let's not do it again."

He turned around and started down the stairs and it was at that moment that Egon noticed something seemed wrong with the PKE meter.

"Peter, wait!" he told him, "It's not over yet…there's two more…"

They heard the low grumbling noises from somewhere inside the walls and they all looked around to see where it was coming from. Through the giant screen came two more full torso creatures who looked most inconvenienced at the unexpected company. They seemed particularly stronger than the others in that they only needed to point at something and it exploded in a shower of sparks.

"That's a nice trick," Peter said as he aimed his particle thrower at them, "Do you do parties?"

He and Ray aimed at the two but they took off before the streams could hit them and instead they wound up burning the movie screen. The two ghosts flew around in a circle near the ceiling, laughing at the stupid people beneath them. They soared right above everybody as they passed by, causing little explosions to pop up here and there all over the room as they passed. Everybody jumped out of the way to avoid being hit, and the ghosts doubled around and came at them again. They too came to an immediate halt when a trap opened from down below and it swallowed them up. When the light died down, everybody looked down the stairs and over the railing to see who had opened the trap and they saw it was Jewell and Winston.

"Is that all of them?" Jewell asked, "Or are there more?"

The PKE meter's readings were as lifeless as happy hour at the Betty Ford clinic, "It's over," Egon said, "We've got them."

Everybody cheered and let out groans of relief as they switched off their proton packs.

"Are you okay, Winston?" Ray asked.

"Like I said," he replied as he rubbed his back, "That would've been more fun 20 years ago. How about you, Egon?"

"Same."

"Well," Peter said, "We got what we came for, now let's get out of here and deposit these goons."

They collected the traps and headed down the stairs and down the room's walkway to the door.

"You can rest easy now," Peter assured the manager, "We got them all. Feel free to open room five to the public again."

They made their way to the front doors and pushed them open and were ready to put the whole thing behind them, when no sooner had they stepped outside, they were blinded by white, flashing lights from all directions.

* * *

Are the Ghostbusters back in business?

That was the front page story in the newspaper the next morning, complete with a full print photo of the eight of them exiting the theater, dazed, confused, and blinded by the flash bulbs when the local news crew got wind of the story and showed up unexpectedly.

"They've got some nerve," Peter said.

"I'll say," Pauline said as she took the paper from him, "Snapping our picture without warning and using the worst one of the bunch. You know they must've taken 100 pictures of us and they use this one where we all look half lit. And Raynelle's still seeing green and purple spots today."

"They might have a point though," Benjamina commented, "What do you think, Dad?"

"Hmmm?" Egon looked up from the latest thing he was working on, "Well…"

"One freak occurrence like that doesn't necessarily mean anything," Peter said, "I mean things have been quiet for years, and out of nowhere this pops up."

"Of course," Ray chimed in, "Our business started with just one strange occurrence too."

"You're not helping, Ray."

"What did you find on the things we caught yesterday, Uncle Egon?" Jewell asked.

"All class six, free roaming manifestations…I've been observing their behavior since they were added with the rest in the containment grid…like the others so far they're going to great lengths to avoid coming in contact with any of the others."

"Well what do you know?" Peter asked, "Dying really does make you antisocial."

"Giving them lessons, Uncle Peter?" Benjamina asked.

* * *

Raynelle took off her sunglasses and looked around; finally she had stopped seeing those damn spots. She was relieved; there was nothing worse than being stuck with something annoying.

"Hey Raynelle," Pauline called as she entered the living room.

Lose one annoying thing, Raynelle thought, and you get stuck with another.

"I thought you had gone," she said.

"No, everybody else had gone, I'm still here," Pauline answered as she sat down beside Raynelle on the couch, "How're your eyes?"

"Better…though I'd still like to know whose bright idea it was to call in the press when we were there yesterday."

"Well, I'm hoping they're onto something with that story," Pauline said, "I hope there are enough ghosts in New York again that the Ghostbusters do go back into business."

"That's something you'd be perfect for, alright," Raynelle noted, "Pissing off the dead."

"Well somebody has to," Pauline said, "Maybe dropping out of college wasn't such a bad idea."

"It wasn't," Raynelle told her, "Dad told me about your thesis. I envy you, you decided what you wanted to do and you did it…"

Pauline looked at her through the corner of one eye, "They treating you like crap at MIT?"

"No," Raynelle shook her head, "No, they don't…uh…they threw me out about two months ago."

"They WHAT!?" Pauline was about on the floor laughing, "You got thrown out of college? Why? What did you do? Oh I know, they caught you with a guy in your dorm, right?"

"Why would you assume that?" Raynelle asked.

"Because you never get in any real trouble," Pauline said, "That's what it is, isn't it? They were making bed checks and found you and somebody else in the same one, right?"

"No," Raynelle's face started to color, "Nothing quite like that…uh, they threw me out because I accidentally blew up the science lab."

This time Pauline was on the floor laughing. "You? You, the daughter of a scientist, blew up the laboratory?"

"Well I'm glad you're enjoying this," she dryly remarked.

"But two months ago?" Pauline couldn't believe it, "Why haven't you told Ray?"

"I can't. You know it was his big dream to go to MIT after Columbia…how do I tell him that I got thrown out too?"

"Just tell him they let you go because they thought you were a little…overzealous in your work."

"I can't do that."

"Why the hell not? Everything we've planned to do has gone out the window. I dropped out of college, I didn't get into the army, I couldn't even keep my job at Yellow Cab. Jewell is never going to be a SEAL, Benjamina quit working at the observatory. We've all let go of our original plans because we failed. You're the only one still hanging onto the illusion of going through with it. If you don't tell Uncle Ray that you're out of college, I will," Pauline told her as she got up to leave the room.

* * *

"So then," Pauline wrapped up the story to Ray, "They decided since it was an accident that they wouldn't press charges against her, but they told her she couldn't attend there anymore. And since you're a scientist and you had planned to go to MIT when you were younger, she wasn't sure how to tell you what had happened. It was probably nerves though, working around all those chemicals, one wrong combination and you blow everybody to hell, it would make anybody nervous."

"Well it's certainly understandable," Ray noted, "I wouldn't imagine living in this household would make anybody too stable for handling explosives."

"Well, I'd love to stay and see her face when she finds out I told you, but I've got to get out of here," Pauline said as she turned to leave the kitchen, "I've got to go sign up."

The door swung open and she bumped into Peter who had been on his way in.

"Where's the fire?" he asked.

"Sorry, Dad, I gotta go," she said, "I'm going to sign up for the stock car race on Saturday. Oh, you're going to come and watch me that day, aren't you?"

"A race? You? Sure, why not?" Peter asked, "It should be interesting."

Pauline was out of the kitchen and the door was swinging behind her.

"So what's going on around here?" Peter asked.

"Well your daughter told me something very hard to grasp," Ray said, "Raynelle was kicked out of college two months ago."

"_Kicked _out? As in she did something wrong?" Peter asked as he went over to the fridge and got a beer, "What'd she do, get caught with a frat boy in her dorm after hours?"

"No, Peter, she blew up the school's science lab," Ray said.

Peter removed the bottle cap from the neck but he wasn't quite able to get his lips on the spout. "She blew up the science lab? And…and we trusted her with an unlicensed nuclear accelerator yesterday? Oh boy, I need to sit down."

The phone rang and a minute later, Benjamina stuck her head in the kitchen door.

"Uncle Peter," she said, "Aunt Dana's on the phone, she wants to talk to you."

"I'm coming," Peter got up, "Ray, just so I got this straight…my kid dropped out of college because she argued with the dean over her thesis, and your kid was kicked out for causing an explosion?"

"That's correct," Ray said.

"Uh huh," Peter went into the next room and picked up the phone, "Hello, Dana? …Oh we're fine, everything's fine here. How are you? …Yeah, how's the weather out there? Dana…" he said nonchalantly, "Just out of curiosity, did you by chance have an affair with Ray about 24 years ago?"


	7. Chapter 7

"Well?" Ray asked, "What do you think?"

Egon pulled himself away from the view into the containment grid, "It's just about like yesterday…for whole hours they move around the chamber, never coming into contact with one another."

"The question is why?" Ray asked, "And is there something to connect all the ones that do?"

"We'll have to further observe them to find any of that out," Egon replied as he wrote something down on a legal pad.

"Egon."

"Hmm?"

"Your daughter was telling me the other day about a strange case in the newspaper. It seems a bunch of people on the islands off from the coast are dying from no apparent causes. Last she checked 175 people had died that way, people in different areas, with different genetic and environ backgrounds, different ages, all in good health, all of a sudden dropping dead from heart failure. Today the paper says it's up to 190 people dying like that…what does that sound like to you?"

"Well I…" Egon saw the look on Ray's face, "You already have an idea about it, don't you?"

"Well, so far nobody over there has any idea on how to connect them all…but it does sound suspicious, don't you think?"

"Slightly odder than whenever there's a pandemic virus in the air," Egon said.

"It sounds to me like all the people involved are being scared to death," Ray told him.

Egon started to laugh, "Come on, Ray."

"I'm serious, Egon," he said, "You said it yourself, the ghosts have gotten strong enough to do actual harm to people…if they can do that, then I don't think they're above frightening people to the point their hearts give out, do you?"

Egon thought about it for a minute before shaking his head, "No."

"What makes the whole thing worse," Ray told him, "Is it keeps getting closer…I've been following the locations listed: Columbia, Venezuela, Havana, Belize, the Bahamas, Panama…it keeps getting closer to the boarder…and if it keeps on as it is, it won't be long before whatever's going on, starts happening here."

Egon scratched his head, "It's too bad we don't have the resources to travel overseas, it'd be very interesting to find out if there's any psycho-kinetic related behavior connected to what's going on."

"Yeah well…it hardly looks like we've got much to look into over here as it is," Ray said, "I think we just got lucky with the movie theater. New York seems to be pretty bone dry in regards to the paranormal."

* * *

"I just can't believe you did that," Benjamina said to Pauline when they got home.

"Why should you be so surprised?" Pauline asked as they walked up the driveway, "Why can't you believe I signed up for Saturday's race?"

"Because _I'm_ registered for the race on Saturday!" Benjamina told her.

"I know," Pauline nodded, "I saw your name on the registry list. I trust Uncle Egon doesn't know?"

"Of course he doesn't know, how can I explain it to him?"

"He knows you quit your job at the observatory; tell him that you're not so much interested in the stars as you are in inertia and friction and physics. He should understand that."

The kitchen door opened and they stepped in.

"That's not funny, Pauline," Benjamina told her.

"What's not funny?" Jewell asked from where she stood by the sink.

"Nothing," Benjamina quickly answered.

"We're both entered in the race on Saturday," Pauline said.

Jewell looked over at her two friends, "Well that should really make it an interesting competition."

"Egon doesn't know," Pauline told her.

"That'll gum up the works," Jewell said, "What were you thinking, Benjamina? Were you thinking that you'd just tell him to meet you at the race Saturday and he'd find out then when they announce your name?"

Benjamina looked helpless and shrugged her shoulders, "I don't know…I don't know what I'm going to tell him. I'm certain that he'll be disappointed in me."

"Why?" Pauline asked, "If you win the cup, that's a $15,000 prize. That's something to be proud of."

"You know my father," Benjamina told them, "Science is his life."

"_His_ life, Benjamina, not yours. We're _all_ daughters of scientists here."

"I'm not," Jewell said.

Pauline elbowed Jewell in the ribs and murmured to her, "I'm on a roll here." Then she continued, "My father has two PhDs in psychology and parapsychology…I'm his daughter, what am I doing? I'm in a stock car race. Uncle Ray is a scientist, he was in college for seven years earning his degrees. What's his daughter do? She _blew up the whole damn science lab!_ We are not our fathers, they were meant to be scientists, we're not…they know it, they accept it, we accept it…you need to accept it too…Egon will."

"I hope you're right," she replied.

Benjamina headed towards the basement and Jewell and Pauline marched behind her and hummed "Taps".

"Thanks for nothing!" Benjamina called after them.

They laughed as she headed down the stairs.

"What do you think he'll say?" Jewell asked.

"Uncle Egon didn't even know what racquetball was…I think this is going to overload his brain…I hope so, that'll be a sight to see."

"Guys," Benjamina came back up the stairs.

"That was quicker than I thought," Pauline commented.

"I haven't told him yet…I was just thinking…it might be a good idea to take one of the PKE meters out to the tracks before Saturday…I got a weird feeling when we were there today."

"That's giddiness produced by inhaling the exhaust fumes."

"I'm serious," Benjamina told her, "If there's something out there, we don't need it popping up during the middle of the race. Can you imagine if there's a strong gathering of psycho kinetic energy under those tracks what it might do to one of the cars?"

* * *

Saturday came and the race was about to begin. Egon, Peter, Ray, Winston, Raynelle and Jewell were in the front seats by the gate watching everybody get ready on the tracks.

"Who do you think will win?" Ray asked.

"I don't know, I just hope everything goes well," Winston said.

"That makes six of us," Jewell said.

The engines were starting to sound off already and for everybody in the front seat it was near earsplitting.

"You know what I wonder?" Peter asked, "How many people go deaf from attending these things, they're so damn noisy."

"What?" Ray asked.

"I said how many people go deaf from attending these things?" Peter asked.

"WHAT?" Ray asked.

"I SAID THEY'RE NOISY!"

"I agree!" Ray told him, "These ARE good seats!"

"Sheesh!"

None of the girls had confided in their fathers what they had suspected; that something paranormal might go wrong during the race. They hadn't been able to get any PKE readings on the tracks in the previous days, and there was no way they would've been able to get their proton packs in with them in the stands; however they were able to smuggle a PKE meter and a couple of traps in with them incase anything should happen. It wasn't much but they hoped it was more than they'd need.

"So remind me again, how do they signal the race to start?" Peter asked, "Do they fire a gun like in the track races?"

A loud siren went off and the cars were tearing down the speedway. Right off the bat, all the cars were evenly matched against one another. On the first turn, two trailed behind the others but among those up front were Benjamina and Pauline's cars.

"How fast do these things usually go?" Peter asked.

"Up to 200 miles an hour," Winston replied, then glanced over at Peter, "Why?"

Peter shook his head, "No reason." Then he leaned in towards Egon and said, "I hope they didn't have a large breakfast."

The cars finished one lap and went around a second time and seemed to pick up speed; which quickly became a dizzying and nauseating sight to watch for some people. Raynelle kept squeezing her eyes shut then opening them again and commented, "I haven't felt this sick since I went on the roller coaster at Coney Island…I feel like I'm going to puke."

"Me too," Egon agreed.

Amazingly enough, they were all able to hear a low and very familiar noise over the roar of the engines that passed by. Raynelle reached into their bag and took out the PKE meter and handed it to Egon. The lights on the screen were going haywire.

"This is not good," he said.

"What's going on?" Peter asked.

Their attention was drawn back to the racetrack as something happened, several of the cars ran into each other, Benjamina's and two others skidded completely off the tracks, and Pauline's toppled over itself and rolled until it hit a wall and landed upside-down. Everybody in the stands were screaming and getting up, the men jumped over the gate and Jewell and Raynelle followed after them.

Benjamina climbed out through the window of her car and had just gotten her helmet off when they ran up to her.

"Are you alright?" Egon asked.

"I think so," she replied, obviously shaken up, "But Pauline's still in there!"

Winston and Egon rushed over to Pauline's car and saw she was sprawled out over the seats in a pretzel. Carefully, they grabbed hold of her and lifted her up and out through the window and carried her back over to the others.

"I think she's alright," Winston said to Peter as they put her down, "Just banged up a little."

They pulled her helmet off and her head rolled back and she laid against the ground, looking skyward but simultaneously looking as if she'd been knocked out of herself.

"Who hit me?" she asked.

"Are you okay?" Peter asked.

"I'm fine, but what happened?" Pauline asked, "It was like somebody pushed the car over at full force."

They all felt the ground rumbling beneath them, it felt like an earthquake and they all had a bad feeling as to what was causing it. Jewell ran back to the stands to get their bag with the traps but the middle of the tracks exploded before she could get there. Everybody in the stands and on the sidelines were running to get the hell out of there, even before they found out what had happened. The force of energy seeping out of the ground was enough to knock everybody down who was in the way, and out of the ground came two transparent, ectoplasmic hotrods, operated by their long deceased drivers who shot through the air chasing each other in circles, laughing maniacally the entire time.

"Here we go again," Peter commented.

Everybody jumped out of the way as the demonic drivers came close to hitting the ground and everybody in the middle of the tracks. Jewell got over to the stands and grabbed hold of one of the traps when one of the ghosts tried to dive bomb her. Panicking, she tossed the trap out onto the tracks and she hit the ground and the ghost and its car just missed hitting her.

It circled around and picked up altitude and wound up getting sucked into one of the traps that Pauline had caught from where she sat on the ground. She'd activated it by slamming her foot down on the control, opening the doors and it was one speed demon down, one to go. The remaining one sped up as he coursed through the sky, his eyes turning bright red and he seemed hell bent on crashing into somebody down below. This time it targeted Peter who hit the ground to avoid coming into contact with it, and when it started to circle around, Ray opened the other trap, sucking the second racer down into the box.

Everybody appeared to be in minor shock once the ghosts were contained and everything seemed to calm down.

"Venkman," Egon said, "Are you okay?"

Peter rolled his eyes and got back to his feet, his back killing him after hitting it against the track at full force.

"That," he said, "Is…it!"

The others turned and looked at him, wondering what he meant.

"That is…it!" he said again as he got the cricks straightened out of his back, "We're not going to put up with this crap anymore. The Ghostbusters are going back into business!"

Everyone looked at each other and they almost couldn't believe what he had said. It almost sounded too good to be true. While the men looked stunned, the girls cheered.

"Thank God," Benjamina said, "I don't think we can survive much more of _this._"

"We're going back in business," Peter told Ray, "And this time we're coming back at full force. All of us."

The others cheered at the announcement.

"Where do we begin?" Benjamina asked.

* * *

It was going on eight o' clock in the morning when Lennie got up. It was good not to be mayor anymore, he thought. Granted he hadn't been mayor in almost 20 years but still, that little fact made it so much easier to wake up in the morning and face the world. Now, anytime something went wrong it wasn't his fault.

He got out of bed, got dressed for the day and went downstairs to the kitchen to fix a cup of coffee. While he waited for the water to boil, he decided to see what was going on in the world today so he turned on the television set on the counter. Then he decided since he was making coffee, he might as well fry some bacon and eggs too so he went over to the fridge.

"_Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night?"_

He stopped. He had heard that voice somewhere before, but…where?

"_Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic?"_

Oh no, it couldn't be…it just couldn't…he turned around and looked at the screen on the TV. Yes it was! That was the old ad the Ghostbusters had run over 20 years ago for their business when they first started. Who was the fruit rerunning this crap this far down the line?

The picture changed from the three original Ghostbusters to four women standing side by side by side, each of them wearing the traditional Ghostbusters jumpsuits and carrying a proton pack on their backs. Lennie rubbed his eyes and looked at the screen again and he recognized them as the Ghostbusters' kids. What the hell was going on?

"_Do you believe in the paranormal realm?"_ Raynelle asked.

"_Have you ever experienced a supernatural phenomenon in your lifetime?"_ Benjamina asked.

Next Pauline stepped forward, _"Do you ever hear strange voices emanating from somewhere other than inside your own head?"_

Then Jewell stepped forward, _"Are you being bothered by a ghost, ghoul or some other unsightly being from another world?"_

The picture changed again and it was the four girls and their fathers standing side by side in their business uniforms.

"_We're still here,"_ Peter announced, _"If you're still here and the ghosts are too, then give us a call, because…"_

"_WE'RE BACK AND WE'RE READY TO BELIEVE YOU!"_

The number for their business showed on the bottom of the screen alongside their trademark "No Ghosts" logo.

"God help us all," Lennie said, "What're they going to do now?"


	8. Chapter 8

"It's come to my attention that we may have a slight problem," Raynelle said the next day in the garage while Ray finished tuning the Ectomobile.

"What problem?" Ray asked.

"Well we were discussing this," Benjamina said, "And after that ordeal we went through getting to the movie theater in this thing, don't you think it's going to be a little crowded with eight of us in one car with all our equipment?"

"I'll admit," Peter said, "Those sudden stops are more fun when you're not smashing into people at all sides."

"We need to find another ambulance," Raynelle explained, "Fix it up like the other one. That way four of us could go in each one and there'd be plenty of room to put the proton packs, the traps, everything we'll need to take with us."

"It's a good idea but where do you look for another one?" Winston asked.

"We can find one," Ray said, "I'll look into it."

"I'll go with you," Raynelle told him.

"See if you can't find one in better shape this time," Peter told them.

They left the garage and saw a young woman walking up the driveway. She was tall, thin, had bright red hair and wore large glasses.

"Can we help you, miss?" Peter asked.

She laughed, "Uncle Peter you ought to be ashamed of yourself, not remembering your own goddaughter."

It was then that he remembered; it was Jamie, Janine and Louis's daughter. She was the spitting image of her mother and had a personality to match.

"Oh yes! We haven't seen you in a while, how are your parents?" Peter asked.

"Fine, they went on their 19th honeymoon, vacationing in Guam, and they sent their regards."

"Well what're you doing here?" Pauline asked.

"My aunt called my mother and told her she'd seen you guys' ad on TV, and mom thought you might be in need of a new secretary if business picked up again."

"Well it would sure come in handy," Raynelle said, "But we haven't had anybody call yet."

"They will," Jamie replied, "Everybody knows how great you guys are at what you do."

* * *

Peter answered the knocking on the front door and saw a young man in a tacky business suit and an ugly smirk on his face.

"Yes?"

"Does Pauline Venkman live here?" the man asked.

"Uh…" he tried to think how to answer that, "My daughter's name _is_ Pauline. What do you want her for? What's she done now?"

"Well I…"

"Daaaaaaaddy!" Pauline called as she came through the dining room and into the front hall, then she saw they had company, "What's going on?"

Well, if she had done something wrong, it was too late for her to back out now. Peter turned to her and said, "This guy wants to see you."

She looked at him and made no sign of recognition, she stepped forward to get a closer look and she stood beside her father.

"Who're you?" she asked him.

"Perhaps you've heard of me," he said, his stupid grin never fading, "Guy Caldwell."

"Sorry, I don't subscribe to the Watchtower," Pauline said.

Now the look on his face was starting to change. It was somewhere between confused and humorous, "Uh, no, I'm a producer from Hollywood."

"Well clearly you took a wrong turn about 3000 miles back west," Peter said.

The man tried to ignore Peter and focused on Pauline, "I've helped create some of the most successful movies in the business today."

"Oh," Pauline nodded in understanding and added, "I never watch any of those."

He got another confused look on his face but was determined to get what he had come for. "You wrote us a few months back, remember?"

"Mm," Pauline thought about it and shook her head, "No."

"You wrote our film studio with the idea of making a movie about your family and your lives in the Ghostbusters."

Peter and Pauline looked at one another, each looking confused. Then Peter looked back at the man and said, "Give us a minute, will you?"

* * *

Guy Caldwell was sent out to the garage to bother the people working there while Peter and his daughter had a little discussion.

"Pauline," Peter said as he paced around the room, looking like he was suffering a migraine headache, "You've done a lot of questionable things in your life, most of which I've been able to understand. I'm drowning on this one though, can you throw me a line?"

Sighing, she explained, "I got the idea when I left home, right after the New Year. I'd just left the university, I was getting rejected by everything I tried, I didn't want to come back but at the same time, I was homesick, I missed being around all this, I missed being around everybody…and I got the idea that of all the stories done about people that become big hits, why shouldn't they do one about our family?"

"I'm following so far," Peter said.

"You know how whenever a story about the president and his family comes out it gets so much attention because everybody wants to know what's happening in his private life. Well, we've all lived far more interesting lives than the president."

"Can't argue with that," Peter said.

"I thought it would be great if Hollywood would take an interest in the Ghostbusters…can you imagine what it'd be like if they did a movie about that? How many people would know about it? So, I got the address of one of the top studios in the business and sent them the idea…after I mailed it I figured we'd never hear from them, they'd never want to do a story about us…how was I to know they'd send Mr. Giggles over here to talk business with us?"

Peter thought about what she said for a minute before reaching his decision, "Alright, let's go."

They went out to the garage where Mr. Caldwell was watching Winston and Ray work on the Ectomobile and he seemed to be working their last nerves.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Caldwell," Peter said as they entered the garage, "But we're not really interested in having our lives portrayed in one of Hollywood's latest disasters you call film. I don't like your movies, you guys have a tendency for never telling the real story, and who would you get to play me who could honestly do justice to the character? You're prone to casting horrible actors in good roles as well and I personally find you and your work to be highly overrated and simply disgusting and downright boring. So, I'm sorry you came 3000 miles for nothing, but we're going to decline your offer and kindly ask you to leave before we have to get physical in our request."

"I'm afraid I don't understand," he replied.

"There's a tattoo that would go great on your forehead," Peter said, "Winston, my man! Show Mr. Caldwell out, will you?" he called, then said to Mr. Caldwell, "I'm going to have my coworker show you the door, so many people seem to have trouble finding it."

"But I don't, AHH!" Winston grabbed Mr. Caldwell and lifted him off the ground and carried him out of the garage.

"Don't forget to write!" Pauline called after them.

"Hey Peter," Ray said, "I just got an idea."

"Congratulations," Peter and Pauline said.

"If we're going to fix up another Ectomobile we might see about putting a CB radio in it so the occupants of one car can contact the other if we have to go to separate locations at the same time."

"Like the truckers use," Pauline said.

"That might be a good idea," Peter added, "But first thing's first, first we have to find a car."

* * *

Late that afternoon Peter was in the house when he heard the oncoming roar of several old sirens. Confused by the racket, he stepped out the backdoor and saw a beat up, dirty, off-white 1959 Cadillac ambulance pulling up the driveway. The windows were so dirty he couldn't see who was in it. He went around to the driver's door, knocked on the window and hollered at the people inside, "You can't park that here!"

The sirens and the engine cut off and the doors opened and Jewell got out from the driver's side and Raynelle stepped out from the passenger seat.

"We found one," Raynelle proudly announced.

"One what?" Peter asked as he looked the car over.

"Come on, Uncle Peter," Jewell told him, "You know this is perfect for our new car."

Peter carefully nudged the front fender with his foot and one of the headlights popped out of its socket. "That remains to be proven," he told her.

"Okay, so it needs some work, so did the first car, didn't it?" Raynelle asked.

Peter opened his mouth to respond but quickly changed his mind and answered, "I'll get back to you on that."

The back door opened and Benjamina and Pauline came out to see what all the noise was about and they looked at the newfound monstrosity in awe.

"Is this our new car?" Benjamina asked as they got up close to it to get a better look.

"Yes."

"Neat, can I drive it?" Pauline asked.

"No!" Raynelle told her, "We want to get it fixed first before you kill it."

"Ha-ha-ha," she dryly remarked, "Very funny."

"Well go find the others," Peter told them, "And let's see about salvaging this sorry looking thing."

* * *

A few weeks later the beat up ambulance was reincarnated as the Ecto-3, every detail made to match that of its predecessor and both cars had CB radios installed in them so the Ghostbusters could keep in contact with one another when they went out on different jobs. On the day that the new car was finished, the Ghostbusters received a most unexpected visit.

"Hello?" the voice called from the entrance of the garage, "Anybody here?"

Everybody turned to see who it was, but Peter recognized the voice.

"Lennie!" he said as he went over to the older man, "Long time no see."

"I can't complain about that," Lennie replied.

"What brings you down here?"

"Oh well I saw your ads on TV and I just had to uh," he looked around the garage, "See it for myself…so…you're really going back in business, aren't you?"

"You got it," Peter answered.

"I see…how's business so far?" Lennie asked.

"Well…"

"We've hardly had a minute to sit down and relax," Pauline told him, "All day every day we're up to our armpits in ectoplasmic _goo_."

Yes they were, Peter thought, but what nobody was about to tell Lennie was that they already had that problem from living with Slimer. They'd only had a couple of calls since they first went on TV to advertise their reopening of the business.

"I see," Lennie responded, "Well, I'll just show myself out then, good day, gentlemen."

"Who's he talking to?" Pauline asked, "There's no gentlemen here."

"Uncle Peter!" Jamie came out of the back door waving her arms and carrying a piece of paper, "You just got a call. Your services are requested at the Rococo Hotel."

"Another hotel?" Peter asked as he took the note and read the address, then sighed, "Here we go again."

Everybody suited up, put their equipment in the cars and got in, Ray driving the Ecto-2 and Jewell driving Ecto-3. The two cars pulled out of the garage and sped out of the driveway and all through the town until they came to the address given during the call. They pulled up outside of the hotel and the thing looked like its whole exterior was made out of cut crystal.

"This is the place?" Raynelle asked as they got their equipment out of the car, "Sheesh, nobody breathe too hard or we'll owe more than we'll make."

"No problem," Peter said, "Just leave it to your uncle Egon and myself, we do this all the time."

"We know," the girls remarked.

The eight of them walked in the front doors and looked around at everybody.

"I don't like this," Peter said, "It all feels too familiar."

"Oh what're you worried about?" Benjamina asked.

"He's just worried about having to bring home another Slimer with him," Egon said.

"I am not!" Peter insisted, and called out to the hotel patrons his almost trademark line, "Hey, anybody seen a ghost?"

Several of the people turned and looked at them curiously, and one nervous looking man in a bad suit came up to them.

"I'm glad you were able to come," he said, "Your secretary said you were about booked for the week."

"Yeah, about," Peter said, "So what's the problem?"

The man tried to explain but it all came out as a bunch of hysterical ramblings and he looked about ready to pull his hair out. "I really don't know where to begin, everything seems to have happened all at once…most of the customers are ready to leave, the staff is ready to quit, I..I…I…"

"Alright, I think we can take it from here," Peter told the nervous man. He said to the girls, "You go upstairs and check things out on the second floor, if you don't find anything there, report back to us and go on to the third floor. We'll look into everything down here and meet up with you if we don't find anything either."

"Right."

Pauline, Benjamina, Jewell and Raynelle went over to the elevators and got on the next one heading up. Before the doors on it closed, Pauline stuck her head out and called, "Uncle Egon."

"What?"

"How come we've never see any other ghosts like Slimer?"

The unanticipated question got his attention and he looked up and made eye contact with her just as the doors closed and their daughters were on their way up to the second floor.

"Alright," Peter said, "Let's get ready to kick some paranormal ass. Switch on."


	9. Chapter 9

The men made their way through the first floor and ended that search in the hotel's kitchen. Egon checked the PKE meter for any unusual readings while Peter invaded the cooks' work and lifted the lids to look in the pots cooking on the stove. He looked back up and saw one of the chefs looking oddly at him and he said to her, "Back off, lady, we're professionals."

"There's nothing down here," Egon concluded.

Ray turned on his walkie-talkie and called to Raynelle to come in.

"_Yah, dad?"_

"Find anything up there?" he asked.

On the second floor, the girls were making their way down the long corridor, checking every room for any readings on their PKE meter or any unusual sightings.

"Negative," Raynelle replied, "We've about covered this whole floor and it's bone dry of any paranormal activity."

"Alright," Ray said, "Head up to the third floor and check it out and we'll meet with you soon."

"Roger," Raynelle put the walkie-talkie away and turned to face the others, "This is ridiculous. I'm starting to wonder if that guy downstairs called us out here on a wild goose chase."

Pauline checked her PKE meter and saw it pick up something at one of the doors on that floor. She opened the door and poked her head in and quickly said, "Oh, excuse me" and closed the door behind her.

"What is it?" Benjamina asked.

"Honeymoon suite," she replied, "Let's keep looking."

Benjamina heard something and saw the PKE meter pick something up when she held it up towards the ceiling. "Whatever it is, it's up on the third floor."

"Great, let's go."

They went to the elevator and punched the third floor. When it arrived and the doors opened, they stepped off and decided to split up and cover more ground at once. Benjamina and Pauline took off down one side and Jewell and Raynelle decided to investigate the other side of the third floor.

"You know I'd hate to think this is all a wild goose chase," Jewell said.

"It can't be," Raynelle reminded her, "Something did show up on the meter."

"Remember who built the meters," Jewell told her, "It's possible they're starting to fall apart on us."

On the other end of the third floor, Benjamina and Pauline turned a corner that led to another corridor and the foot of the stairs leading up to the fourth floor. When Benjamina wasn't looking, Pauline decided to go on ahead up to the next floor so she quietly slipped up the stairs and looked around the hallways on the fourth floor. For the time of day it was, everything seemed unusually quiet, still, like the dead. As she took a step forward down the hall she could swear she felt somebody breathing down her neck. Turning around she saw nobody; she took out her PKE meter and saw it was picking something up from down the hall.

At first she considered contacting somebody from one of the lower floors but decided against it. She decided to see for herself what it was first and foremost. Carefully, quietly, she wasn't sure why since she never was too convinced that certain ghosts were too aware of human presence, she slunk down the hall and turned the corner and saw something that surprised even her. Staring on ahead at the hideous sight, her hand reached down to her belt and pulled out the walkie-talkie and she turned it on.

"Benjamina," she said, "Do you read me?"

"_Pauline? Where are you?"_

"I'm up on four, Benjamina…I've found it."

"_What is it?"_

She didn't answer the question. "It's looking straight at me."

"_Is it moving towards you?"_

"Not yet."

"_I'm on my way."_

Pauline put the walkie-talkie away and continued staring on ahead at the ghost. She didn't dare take her eyes off of it because if it disappeared again there was no telling where it would take off to. It continued staring back at her as if sizing her up, then without warning it came at her. Pauline took a step back and let out a startled yell. Benjamina reached the top of the stairs and followed the sound of the scream and found Pauline just in time to unknowingly get between she and the oncoming ghost.

* * *

Down on the third floor, Jewell and Raynelle had finished checking the rooms when they heard Benjamina scream and they ran up the stairs to find out what had happened. They stopped and saw Benjamina on the floor covered in a clear ectoplasmic goo.

"What happened?" Raynelle asked.

"He slimed me," Benjamina answered as she started to get to her feet.

"What was it?" Jewell asked.

Benjamina felt some of the ectoplasm in her mouth and spit, "I don't know."

"Pauline, did you see it?" Raynelle asked.

"Yeah, it looked like a mean son of a bitch whatever it was," she answered.

"Where'd it go?" Jewell asked.

"It went back down to the third floor," Pauline said.

"Well let's go get it," Raynelle said.

Pauline took out her walkie-talkie again and got her father this time.

"_Pauline?"_

"Dad, we saw it, it's definitely something. I'm not sure what it is but it got Benjamina."

"_Is she okay?"_

"Well," Benjamina turned and glared at her, "I'll let you decide when you see her. We're up on the fourth floor and it headed back downstairs. It probably won't stop at the third floor now that it's seen us, meet us up on second."

"_We're on our way."_

"So are we."

The girls took the elevator back down to the second floor and when they got off, they start across the hallway when something got their attention.

"Yeesh it's cold in here," Jewell said, "Did they turn up the AC?"

"Oh no, not _that_ again," Raynelle replied.

Pauline and Benjamina looked around and they saw something in the middle of the hallway. Out of nowhere there formed what looked like a very small, very thin funnel cloud that spun around at a remarkable speed, blowing freezing winds at incredible speeds. The faster it spun the bigger it got and finally it seemed to burst; out of it sprang half a dozen or so full torso apparitions that saw the Ghostbusters and looked mad as hell.

The Ghostbusters threw their particle streams at the ghosts but only managed to catch a couple of them; the rest of the apparitions got away and circled overhead like a kettle of vultures. At this time, the original Ghostbusters had arrived on the scene and looked above and saw what was going on and they hurried up the stairs.

One of the ghosts aimed at Raynelle and she ducked out of the way as the wall behind her was zapped and blackened to a cinder; she caught the thing in the stream and threw out a trap to catch it. Another one cornered Pauline against the railing that kept her from falling down to the first floor. Instead of zapping at her however, it opened its mouth and blew at her and from his mouth came such a gust that it hit her like a steady wind blowing at over 60 miles an hour. There was enough force in its breath to lift her off the ground and send her falling over the railing and she dropped down to the first floor and made a crash landing in the lobby's water fountain. Looking up she saw Egon turn and come back down the stairs to help her.

"I'm alright," she told him, and pointed towards the second floor, "Get them!"

"Come here, big boy!" Peter said as he pulled in one of the ghosts he'd caught in the particle stream, "You're going to make a nice addition to my private zoo back home."

Ray threw out a trap and stepped on the control and the full bodied pests got sucked into the box which promptly closed behind them. When the ghosts were contained, the Ghostbusters thought that was it; but then Egon picked up something else on his PKE meter. Just as Pauline made her return up the stairs, they all heard a strange noise coming from somewhere on the floor and they looked around. It was Peter who made the very rude discovery when he saw another onion head come out through the wall.

"Oh my God!" he said, "It's another Slimer, they're multiplying!"

Truer words couldn't have been spoken; a moment later, several more ghosts resembling the class five full roaming vapor they'd first discovered over 20 years ago came out from the walls. There was however an immense difference in these ghosts and the original. Slimer had been a disgusting little spud with a sick sense of humor but these apparitions just appeared to be downright violent. They howled in long dead voices that sounded absolutely horrible, and they charged at the Ghostbusters. However, evidently intelligence was not something ghosts carried over to the other side because the Ghostbusters had anticipated the ambush and were waiting for them. They opened fire on the spuds and collected them all piece by piece by piece, until order seemed to be restored to the hotel.

"How many is that?" Ray asked.

"I lost count," Pauline replied, "Maybe 20."

The eight Ghostbusters collected all the traps and headed down the stairs. The same nervous looking man who had shown them into the hotel came back around and inquired about what had happened.

"Well, we've got them," Peter said and the other Ghostbusters held up the traps, "Now, about our fees. We charge on average $1500 for trapping and containing, per ghost…but as many as we caught I think we can qualify this as a group discount at an even…" through the corner of his eye he glanced at Egon who raked his fingers over the side of his face three times, "$15,000, which should cover all expenses."

"Very well," the man replied, "It's worth it to be rid of those things."

"Great, get us our check and we'll get out of here," Pauline said as she started to walk away. She stopped and let out a sudden, "Whoops" as she felt something, and reached down into one of her front pockets, pulled out a handful of coins and tossed them back into the fountain, "Sorry about that."

* * *

"Oh man," Winston said once they returned to the house, "We must've caught half of Slimer's family in that hotel."

"How's Pauline?" Ray asked.

"She's fine but the fall totaled her proton pack," he answered, "Egon's downstairs trying to repair it."

"I hope the next job we get doesn't have as many things to catch," Peter remarked as he leaned back in his chair, "One big thing will do just fine. Nice big dinosaur's alright with me."

Benjamina scoffed and said, "You're just hoping you don't run into anymore Slimers."

"Damn right," Peter replied, "You saw those things, can you blame me?"

She thought about it momentarily but shook her head, "No, hell, after what happened today, I don't want to see another one of them as long as I live."

"Did the rest of them go quietly?"

"No, but we got them all in the containment unit," Benjamina answered as she sat down, "Those were stubborn sons of bitches, they didn't want to go, _but_, given we can see what they do in that thing all day, I guess I can't say I blame them."

"Uncle Peter," Jamie stepped into the room with a note, "Another call came in."

"Not another hotel."

"No, no…this one's just downtown."

"Let me see," Peter took the note from her and read it, "Ray and I can probably take this one ourselves."

"Maybe," Jamie told him, "But you'd probably better take somebody else for insurance."

"Count me in," Winston said as he got up.

"You girls mind the store," Peter told them, "We'll be back soon."

Pauline was coming down the stairs as the three men headed out the door. She went into the living room where the others were and asked, "Who lit a fire under them?"

"Another call came in," Jewell said, and before Pauline could say anything, she added, "A smaller job that didn't require our presence."

"Just as well," Pauline replied, "Jewell, where're the keys to the new car?"

Jewell's eyes widened when she heard that, "Why?"

"I'm going to take it out and see how well it runs. If we're going to use it, we all have to be sure of its ability to function properly."

"No you're not," Jewell shook her head.

"Why not?" Pauline asked.

"Because you drive like Mister Magoo, that's why!" Jewell said, "We need that car in one piece, and all you do is tear up everything you drive."

"I do not," Pauline insisted.

"Besides," Jewell said, "I don't have the keys, Raynelle does. She says if you want to drive it, the only way you can is if she goes with you so she can make sure you don't wreck it."

"Wreck it?" Pauline repeated, "Wreck it!?"

"Wreck what?" Raynelle asked as she entered the room.

Without even looking, Pauline reached behind her and grabbed Raynelle by the ear and dragged her out of the room with Raynelle screaming at her the whole time.

Benjamina watched those two leave the room and she said to Jamie, "Sometimes it amazes me we've gotten this far without those two killing each other. After all, they're just like their fathers."

"Yeah, but remember it was Uncle Ray who drove the Ecto-2 into a tree," Jewell reminded her.


	10. Chapter 10

"Man that was one _ugly_ ghost," Winston said when he and Peter and Ray got back from their job downtown.

"As long as we don't run into anymore that look like Slimer," Peter replied, "Where the hell _did_ all those onion heads at the hotel come from?"

"Got me."

Ray looked and noticed that the second car was gone, "I wonder if another call came in while we were out."

"Let's face it guys," Peter said, "We've been out of the business too long; we forgot how busy it gets. At least now there's twice as many of us to cover everything."

"I'm happy with it so long as we don't have to encounter another Gozer, or Vigo," Winston replied.

"I'll second that," Peter said, "I don't think the city would be too lenient with us if we had another moldy Sumerian god come down and start tearing up the city."

They heard the Ecto-3 coming down the street and looked in time to see it make a kooky turn in the driveway, and pull up halfway to the garage before hitting something that made it jump, then coming to a sudden stop. Raynelle about fell out of her side of the car before it had fully stopped, she apparently couldn't get out of there fast enough.

"What happened?" Ray asked her.

"Pauline wanted to take the thing out for a drive," his daughter answered, and shook her head, "If she drives like that when we go out on a job, she's going to kill all of us."

Raynelle headed up to the house but the men noticed Pauline hadn't gotten out yet. Peter and Winston headed over to the driver's side and saw Pauline's body all mangled up in a knot after the car jumped.

"Well?" Peter asked her, feeling certain there was quite an interesting story behind this.

"Well," Pauline replied dryly, "At least I missed the tree."

* * *

Pauline headed down to the basement and saw Winston helping Ray with one of the proton packs.

"How's it going?" she asked.

"Should be done soon," Ray answered.

"Uncle Winston," Pauline said, "Can I ask you a question?"

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Before you became a Ghostbuster, you worked in electronic counter-measuring, right?" she asked.

"Yeah," he answered.

"And Strategic Air Command?"

"Yeah."

"And you were a small arms expert, right?"

"That's what it said on my résumé," Winston answered.

"Okay then," Pauline said, "Then how'd you get stuck working here?"

Winston shrugged and said, "What can I say? It was the 80s, whole bunch of weird stuff was going on then."

"Obviously," Pauline remarked, "Much of it no thanks to Uncle Ray's imagination."

"I'm never going to hear the end of that one, am I?" Ray asked.

"Not while we're still alive," Pauline and Winston said at the same time.

"Though that reminds me of something, Uncle Ray, I had a thought earlier about something I wanted to run by you," Pauline said.

"What's that?"

"Can ghosts think?"

"What?" he looked at her funny.

"I'm serious, are they capable of thinking? I mean on one hand it doesn't make sense because their brain is detached from them and left with the body, but on the other hand…like Vigo, he had to have something going on in his head to plan to come out of a painting, possess Oscar and take over the world," Pauline said.

Ray looked totally confused. Winston turned back and looked at him to see what he had to say. Ray shook his head and said, "Now there's one I never really thought of." He chuckled, "Now that doesn't make sense, all the things we did question about the paranormal and we never thought to ask if the dead can think."

* * *

"They've had over 30 years to think about all this stuff and it never occurred to them that ghosts could think?" Pauline repeated later in their bedroom, "It doesn't make sense."

"Of course from certain standpoints, few things our fathers do _does_ make sense," Benjamina replied from where she was sprawled over the edge of her bed reading.

"And I thought of something else earlier too," Pauline said, "You know how anytime anybody says they don't want to be cremated, some idiot always says 'you won't know anything, you'll be dead'? Well…so much for that theory, huh? Apparently the dead _do_ know things because they stick around to see them. Which brings me to my next question, do you think ghosts can feel pain?"

"I don't know," Raynelle said.

"I mean when we open the traps on them, they always scream, do you think it hurts them?" Pauline asked.

Jewell was also sprawled out over the top of her bed, trying to sleep. She opened her eyes and looked up at Pauline and said to her, "You're not starting to turn soft are you?"

"Hell no, I'm just curious," Pauline said, "I mean think about it, we all have to die someday and if those things are still around, who's to say any of us won't be?"

Benjamina's eyes looked over her glasses, "It's a good question. We do know that for all the millions of ghosts that are roaming the earth, it can't possibly be true that there's one for every single person who's died or they would've overrun the planet a long time ago. Why does one person stay when they die and the other moves on to, wherever? But it's a rule of thumb that people never want to anticipate anything that connects with their upcoming, impending demise."

"Not even Uncle Ray and your father?" Pauline asked as she flopped down on the foot of her bed.

"I doubt it," Benjamina replied, "Can you imagine how mortifying it would be to them to consider that possibility? That one day they might end up in the containment grid just like all the others?"

"Though that might explain why they've suddenly taken up an interest in seeing what everybody does in there," Pauline said.

"I don't know about that," Jewell commented, "Think about it, who would put them there? It'd just be us left, and we wouldn't."

"That might be a problem," Pauline said.

Raynelle picked up on something in Pauline's tone when she said that, "What's going through your mind now?"

"I've just been thinking, you know how they always talked about branching the business out all over the country, having Ghostbusters everywhere like there're policemen and firemen," Pauline said.

"Yeah, but they never had the resources for that," Raynelle told her, "Hell, at times they barely had the resources to keep going what they have."

"I know that, but think of it," Pauline said, "They never left their own territory, and everybody knows New York isn't even the _most_ haunted state in the country, just think of how many other ghosts, mists and vapors must be running around out there."

"You think of it," Jewell said as she picked up a pillow off her bed and covered her head with it, "Handling the little creepers in this state alone is enough for me."

"I think that's my point," Pauline said, "Only so many people equal only so much manpower, falling way below par of what's required for all the dead people running around this place."

"Hate to say it but she has a point," Benjamina told the others, "It's like what I was saying before about what's going on down in the Bahamas."

Raynelle looked at her, "What about the Bahamas?"

"Never mind," Benjamina replied, "It would take too long to explain."

"Just like everything your father ever tries to explain," Pauline noted.

Benjamina picked up a science magazine by her bed and tossed it at Pauline, just missing hitting her in the back of the head.

* * *

"You guys got another call," Jamie said, handing Jewell a piece of paper with an address on it, "Just eight blocks down the street."

"Great, let's go," Raynelle said.

Pauline zipped up her coveralls and headed over to Jamie's desk and said, "Since it's nearby, you wanna come and see how we do it?"

"No thanks," Jamie replied, "My life is very simple, I'm scared of heights, I hate the water, I never take elevators, I don't go on any of the rides at Coney Island, I'm a very boring person, and I'm for keeping it that way."

Considering who her parents were, Pauline thought to herself, that was no surprise.

The four girls headed out the door and out to the car; Pauline and Raynelle collided by the driver's door.

"Move over," Pauline shoved her, "I'm driving."

"No," Raynelle shoved Pauline back, "I'm driving."

"Wrong," Jewell got between the two and shoved them both, "_I'm_ driving, _I'm_ the only sane one here, _get in back_!"

"I swear," Benjamina said as they got in beside her, "You two are worse than your fathers."

"We are not!" they insisted.

Jewell backed the Ecto-3 out into the street and slammed on the accelerator, hoping the sudden jolt would knock some sense into the two.

"So, what is it we're dealing with this time?" Raynelle asked.

Jewell reached into her pocket, took out the paper and passed it behind her to Raynelle, "I didn't look, what's it say?"

Raynelle unfolded the note and said, "Just says disturbances in the attic."

Pauline looked over to Benjamina and said, "If you say squirrels, I'll kill you."

Benjamina shrugged her shoulders and replied, "I didn't say anything."

They reached the house in question and pulled up by the curb and got out, bringing their equipment up to the house with them.

"I wonder what it is," Jewell said.

Pauline looked up at the top of the three-story house and said, "Well whatever it has, it hasn't ripped the roof off the joint yet, that has to be a good sign."

An older woman came to the door and was momentarily taken aback by their appearances, but she led them up the stairs and to the third floor.

"So what's the problem?" Pauline asked, "A heads up would be nice."

"It's hard to explain," the woman said.

"We'll probably figure it out when we see it," Benjamina assured the woman.

They reached the second floor and were right at the stairs to the attic when Jewell turned to the woman and told her, "We'll take it from here, you better go back downstairs before it gets ugly."

Benjamina adjusted her glasses and took out a PKE meter and checked the readings. "No doubt about it, something is _definitely up there."_

"Well let's go find out what it is and kick its ass," Pauline said.

They headed up the stairs and were surprised to find there were no rooms or doors on the third floor. It was just one large continuous floor.

"Never seen an attic like this," Raynelle said.

"Especially not one this big," Pauline added, "But I don't see anything weird going on here."

Jewell noticed something and looked around the attic, "Heat rises, doesn't it?"

"It should, our floor's always the hottest in the damn house," Pauline said.

"And there's no fan or window unit up here," Jewell said, and looked up, "No air vents either…so why's it cool up here?"

The others looked at each other, "Not again."

They heard a noise and turned and saw what looked like another miniature cyclone form out of nowhere.

"I don't know about you guys but I'm getting tired of seeing these things everywhere we go," Pauline said as she switched her proton pack on.

Jewell looked and saw Benjamina wasn't moving, she just stood where she was with an inquisitive look on her face.

"Uh oh," Jewell said, "That's your father's look, what is it?"

"There has to be a connection," Benjamina said.

Raynelle went over and hit the switch on Benjamina's pack, "Well you can theorize on that later, right now we've got work to do."

Pauline and Jewell watched the cyclone and saw that it didn't get any large than about two feet tall.

"I always wondered what it'd be like to get caught in one of these things," Pauline commented as she took a step closer to it.

"What're you doing?" Raynelle asked.

"Just a little experiment," Pauline replied.

"Uh oh," Raynelle covered her eyes, "It's her father shining through again, you remember how well his experiments used to work."

Pauline stuck her foot in the cyclone and waited to see what would happen. She looked at the others and shook her head, "Nothing." She turned to Raynelle and Benjamina and said, "Hey, do either of you guys know if ghosts ever put out duds?"

"Maybe we finally found what a class 4 is," Jewell thought

"Or at this rate, maybe even a class 2," Pauline added, "This thing is so pathetic, it can't possibly…"

She didn't finish what she was saying because they felt the wind pick up and the cyclone grew to six feet in size and continued to spin around violently. However it stayed in the center of the room, but the girls became aware of a spinning sensation surrounding them nonetheless.

It was Raynelle who made the startling discovery, "The room's spinning!"

Indeed it was. For all the rotating the cyclone was doing, it remained stationary, but the floor beneath them had started to spin around, as did the walls. The winds got strong enough that it knocked all four girls down and pressed them up against the walls as everything continued to move.

"Man, I always hated round rooms at the fun park!" Jewell said.

"I've never been sick on a ride in my life," Pauline said as she covered her eyes, "But this might just be a first."

Benjamina and Raynelle were suffering the real brunt of the storm because they were lighter in weight than the other two so they were getting knocked around the room like a couple of rag dolls. Jewell kept her weight pressed to the floor as she crawled away from the wall and tried to grab hold of one of them; instead she got blown closer to the cyclone, then the gusts seemed to do an about face because they blew her away from the cyclone and out of the room entirely and down the stairs.

Jewell got back on her feet and cleared her head and said to herself, "Whatever that thing is, I'm killing it again."

She headed back up the stairs, keeping her weight low because the high winds were still gusting, and she watched as the other three were still knocked around the room, and then, it just stopped, and they all hit the walls, hard.

"Are you guys okay?" Jewell asked.

Benjamina and Raynelle looked at each other and agreed, "No."

"Pauline," Benjamina called out, "How 'bout you?"

Pauline hit the wall face first when it stopped, she peeled herself off from it and just answered, "I'm fine" before she fell down again.

Benjamina and Jewell went over, each grabbed an arm and they pulled Pauline to her feet. Then she pushed away from both of them and said, "Just point me in the direction they went, I'm gonna kill them. I don't care if that thing _is_ dead, I'm gonna kill it again."

Apparently whatever was there, didn't like that idea; they heard what sounded like something growling and then they saw several blue partial torso manifestations climbing out of the walls.

"These are what's causing so much trouble?" Jewell asked.

"Whatever they are," Pauline said, "We know how they got here, so everybody grab a partner and let's dance."

They grabbed their particle throwers and pulled the triggers. Three of the creatures were hit automatically but four more managed to get away and kept flying around the room, trying to throw the girls off balance to or try and hit them. Raynelle tossed out one trap and stepped on the control, and the first three they caught went in with little more than a scream. The remaining four proved harder to catch because before they were caught, they each multiplied into two.

"I always hated these kinds of tricks at parties," Raynelle commented.

"Get them before they do it again!" Pauline said.

* * *

Half an hour later they had every last one of those…things, caught and trapped and headed for home. As soon as they got there, they took six traps down to the basement and ran them one by one through the containment grid; it was right around when they were finishing that they heard their fathers return.

"It's like Wednesday at the Laundromat," Peter cynically commented, "You guys had the same idea, huh?"

"What happened with you guys?" Winston asked.

Their daughters all looked at one another before turning back to their fathers and started to explain what happened; but every word got spilled out over someone else talking.

"Hold it! Let's try that again," Peter told them, "One at a time."

They tried, but once again everybody had volunteered themselves to be the first one to talk. Still, this time their parents got a more coherent version about it all: the cyclone, the spinning room, the ghosts, everything.

"Hmmm," Egon started to think.

Jewell leaned in to Pauline and said to her, "I told you, that's the look."

"What's up?" Peter asked.

"That house, the hotel, the movie theater, in all of them, right before the apparitions showed up, the temperature dropped dramatically in all areas and a heavy gust came up out of nowhere, twice with a cyclone…I wonder if there's a connection between them all."

"I don't know how there could be," Jewell said, "None of the things we've caught at all those places even look anything alike."

"That's right," Pauline said, "Then you have the grabbers, the zappers, the Slimers and now these guys that somewhere in the transcendence from our world to the spirit world got chopped in half and can split like atoms on command."

"It might be worth looking into," Egon commented.

Ray was the last one down to the basement, "Boy this is turning out to be one busy week. I don't know about you guys but after this is all over, I feel like I could head out to Coney Island and just relax…maybe take in the Cyclone ride…" he looked to the girls and asked them, "What do you say?"

Benjamina and Raynelle looked at each other for a second, let out a Pee Wee Herman-ish scream and jumped over the workbench.

"Was it something I said?" Ray asked.

"Hey guys," Jamie came down the stairs with another note, "Another call came in…"

Pauline took the note and read the address, "Paradiso Parks."

"I read about that place in the papers," Ray said, "That's the new combination amusement/water park that's opening next month. I wonder what their problem is."

"Let's go find out," Peter said, he turned to Raynelle and Benjamina and said, "You guys coming?"

"No way," Benjamina answered.

"Forget it," Raynelle replied.

"Suit yourself, we'll go without you," Pauline said.

* * *

The two Ectomobiles pulled up at the entrance gate to the park and headed on in.

"This place is huge," Jewell observed.

"I don't see anybody around," Peter said, "If this turns out to be some kind of crank…"

Winston cut him off, "You may want to rethink that, look."

A nervous looking man in a bad suit came up to them and said, "Oh good, you're here."

"What exactly seems to be your problem, sir?" Peter asked.

"I don't know where to start," he said, "We're supposed to open in a month, the controls have locked up for everything, but the rides keep coming on by themselves…we can't get anything to work around here, but the lights come on and the music starts and they start moving around."

"Well everything seems nice and quiet now," Jewell noted.

"And still as the dead," Pauline added, before she realized the bad joke she'd made.

Egon checked his PKE meter and noticed that there _was_ some paranormal movement about the place.

"Venkman," he said.

Peter leaned over and saw the readings going berserk on the machine. "So let's look around," he said, "See if we find anything."

They did look around, for half an hour, then an hour and they hadn't found anything.

"There's nothing wrong with any of the rides," Jewell told Pauline, "None of them have started up since we got here, there's nothing out of the ordinary about the roller coasters, the Ferris wheel, the bumper cars, the scrambler, the zipper, or that octopus over there."

"Nothing wrong with the haunted house either," Pauline added as she took a cigarette out of her breast pocket and lit it, "Just the standard scare gimmicks, trap doors, hands reaching out and grabbing you, dummies made up to look like corpses, recorded screams and sound effects, all that status quo stuff."

"You think Uncle Peter's right and it _is_ just a false alarm?" Jewell asked.

"From a promotional standpoint it would make sense," Pauline said, "He's opening up next month, he needs all the advertisement for the place he can get, but I wouldn't think he'd be trying to get it like this." She looked up at one of the roller coasters and said, "I got an idea."

She put out her cigarette and went over to one of the roller coasters and started to climb up the side of the lift hill.

"Get back down here!" Jewell said, jerking her back down to the ground, "What do you think you're doing?"

"I figured if I could get to the top, I could get a better look around the place and find out if anything unusual can be _seen_ from a bird's eye view," Pauline explained.

"I see it!" they heard Peter call from over by the water park, "I see it, it's going up the water slide, follow me and we'll get it up there."

Pauline, Egon and Winston followed Peter up a 60 foot waterslide and found themselves at the top, but couldn't see any ghost.

"What was it?" Winston asked.

"Where'd it go?" Pauline asked.

They all got in front of him looking for whatever it was he had seen; Peter gave Egon a shove with his foot and the result was a domino effect, all four of them went gushing down the slide, making a hard landing into the pool. The combined weight of four adults made for a sharp splash and very heavy waves in the water. One by one the Ghostbusters emerged and then fell back under the water.

Egon came up first and let out an angry, "Venkman!" before sliding under the water again.

Then Winston bobbed up in the water and yelled out, "Peter!" before the waves swallowed him up as well.

Third, Pauline surfaced and called out, "Daddy!" before going under a second time.

Peter came up and said, feigning innocence, "Are my ears burning?"

The other three popped up again looking like drowned rats, and they weren't amused.

"You did that on purpose!" Egon said.

"That's right, I did," Peter replied calmly, "Wasn't it fun?"

"Fun?" Egon got out before he slipped under the waves again.

"Oh yeah, Peter," Winston replied dryly, "F-u-u-u-u-n."

"Let's go back and do it again," Pauline said, actually sounding halfway serious about it, as she started to climb out of the pool.


	11. Chapter 11

"Ghosts that make the house spin, eh?" Jamie asked Raynelle and Benjamina when they told her about their job earlier that day.

"The top part anyway," Raynelle said.

Benjamina scratched her head and told them, "Maybe I'm just crazy but I think our dads are right about seeing a pattern in some of the ghosts we've been catching lately. At several of the places where we've worked, those ghosts all made their entrance in a cyclone of some sort, all different types of ghosts, but all with accompanying tornadoes."

"I noticed that too, but what's it mean?" Raynelle asked.

"That, I'm not sure about yet," Benjamina replied, "But I'm wondering if there could be any possible connection."

Jamie looked out the window and said, "I guess you'll get your chance to ask the others, they're back."

"Good," Benjamina said, "It's about time we conferred with the rational people in this house."

She had a sudden urge to retract that statement when their fathers and the two other girls walked in the house completely soaking wet.

"What happened to you?" Raynelle asked.

"Ask your uncle," Egon said only as he pointed at Peter.

"What?" Peter shrugged his shoulders, "It was fun."

"What happened?" Benjamina asked.

"We were chasing ghosts at a water park," Pauline answered, "And Dad thought it would be funny to get us all up on one of the tallest waterslides and knock us down it."

"Well it _was_ funny," Peter insisted, and then sped up his pace to get away from the others before they had a chance to try and kill him.

Pauline wrung out the top of her coveralls and added, "On a side note though, the guy threw in some free passes for when the place opens up."

"Dad," Raynelle spoke up, "We wanted to talk to you about something."

"What's that?" Ray asked.

"Never mind," Benjamina said, "It'll wait."

Once the others went off to change into some dry clothes, Raynelle turned towards Benjamina and asked her, "What's up?"

She shook her head and told Raynelle, "I just think it'd be better if we waited a while and see if we get anymore calls today, I think if we all put our heads together on this one it's going to be a few hours to come to a solution, and we don't have that time right now."

"You can say that again," Jamie said as she hung up the phone and picked up some notes, "The phone's been ringing off the hook."

"More jobs?" Raynelle asked.

"Actually no," Jamie told them and handed them the messages, "Apparently some of the local guys saw you in the TV ads and are interested."

"In what?" Raynelle asked.

Benjamina snorted and said, "Raynelle, if you have to ask, it doesn't matter anymore."

"Say what?" Pauline asked, "Guys calling about us?"

"Well almost," Jamie told her, "Nobody asked about Jewell."

"That was smart of them," Jewell sounded pleased as she folded her arms tight against her chest.

"You can say that again," Pauline said, "It's never a good idea to get fresh with somebody who can bench press you."

"I guess some things never change," Raynelle said as she pocketed her messages, "I seem to recall hearing when our dads were single that the women were all over them too."

"Makes sense, they drank heavier back then," Pauline commented as she tore her messages to confetti and tossed them again.

"You didn't even read those," Raynelle said.

"That's right," Pauline replied, "If I wanted some fraternity jughead to kill the nights with tossing back beers…"

"Let me guess," Raynelle told her, "You would've stayed at college."

"No," Pauline answered, "Why should I when I've got you three bohos to do it with?"

"Oh!" the others replied as they ganged up on her and took turns kicking her and tackling her.

* * *

"What do you think, Jewell?" Pauline asked later when the two of them were alone in the garage as they went over the cars for any obvious damage.

"About what?" she replied as she finished lugging the equipment out of the backseat and kicked the door shut.

"I've just been thinking about that last house we worked at," Pauline said, "There, and the hotel, and the movie theater, every time the ghosts appeared, first it got cold, and then there was a tornado of some kind, what could that mean?"

"Maybe we don't want to know," Jewell suggested, "Because it could mean delving into the minds of the ghosts."

"I don't know," Pauline told her, "There's just something about it that seems off. It's like in their own paranormal way they've found a way to manipulate the elements, the weather, granted it's all in a controlled environment in the legion of the dead, but still…"

"Well, what's on your mind about it?" Jewell asked as she examined the car's taillights for cracks.

Pauline sat on her motorcycle and said, "I don't know, if I'd paid more attention to meteorology in school maybe I could come up with something." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette and lighter, "Let's see," she said as she bit down on the cigarette and let it, "Maybe the common factor is all these ghosts originally come from the same place…"

"Maybe they all died in a tornado," Jewell suggested.

"Or several," Pauline thought as she got up from her bike and laid on the hood of the Ecto-2, "The ones that we can actually make out as having once been people, all seem to come from different points in history. However, we're not very big on tornadoes here, so maybe they're coming in from somewhere else, but where, and why?"

"Maybe it's not a tornado, maybe they all died in a hurricane," Jewell said, "That would explain it, wouldn't it? Those winds could blow in anything and anybody from anywhere _to_ anywhere, especially if you're dead."

Pauline took a few seconds to register what Jewell had just said and she sat up and told her, "You had no business being in the SEALs, you should've written puzzles for the newspaper, nobody would _ever_ be able to crack that mind of yours."

The phone in the garage rang, Jewell went over to answer it and after a couple words, she held the receiver against her to muffle the mouthpiece and said, "It's for you."

"I'm not taking any calls from any bimbo dumb enough to be interested in me," Pauline told her.

"It's your brother," Jewell told her and held the receiver out.

Pauline blinked, "Oscar?" She went and took the phone from Jewell and said into it, "Hello?"

Jewell went back to the cars and watched Pauline's end of the conversation as she asked, "Hey, what's up? Where are you? Oh…oh you did?" She rolled her eyes and said, "Oh you saw that…yeah…well it's a long story…I see…are you going to be coming home soon?" The hopeful look on her face died almost as quickly as she said that, "Oh…yeah, I understand…uh huh…well she's not here right now…him? He's out at the moment too…yeah, I'll tell them you called, okay…bye."

"What'd he say?" Jewell asked.

"He…saw our ads on TV," Pauline said as she joined her by the cars.

"And?" Jewell asked when Pauline didn't continue.

Pauline looked up from the hood and said, "And…he said he's proud of me to be working in the family business."

"Pauline," Jewell told her, "Your brother's always been proud of you."

"Yeah I know," Pauline nodded, unconvincingly, "Would be nice though if he'd ever been here to tell me in person. Seems as long as I can remember he's either been gone, or just distant…and now he's been gone for I don't know how long, Mom's gone on a vacation away from us, I'm only here because I got fired from the cab company, let's face it, ours is a very _distant_ family."

"Not distant," Jewell replied, "_Long distance_."

"Yeah well…you notice how my dad is the only _normal_ one in this family?"

Jewell shrugged her shoulders and asked, "What do you mean?"

"Okay, I've been thinking about this lately," Pauline explained, "Mom gets possessed by Zuul, Oscar gets picked by Vigo to be his bodily replacement to take over the world, and _me_, anytime I get slimed by these creepy crawlies I go postal and try to kill somebody, nothing has ever happened to my dad."

Jewell just shrugged again and said, "Well they can't all be gems, of course that's to be expected in this business."

Pauline threw her head back laughing.

* * *

The rest of that day and the next one proved to be uneventful. Nobody had called in to report any ghosts and everybody was enjoying having a day off; all except Pauline who once again found herself taking care of the housework despite there being 7 other people in the house. She grumbled under her breath as she swept off the front porch which seemed to have been collecting dust and dirt since the house was originally built. After she sideswiped everything out of one end of the carpeted porch, she turned and drew back when she almost collided with a man standing on the steps.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Does Dr. Venkman live here?" he asked.

Pauline gave the guy a quick onceover; he seemed to be somewhere in his late 20s or early 30s, he had short brownish red hair, and was dressed in a blue suit that gave him quite a resemblance to a lawyer. Pauline _hated_ lawyers, she always insisted it was in her blood after all the crap her father and the others had to put up with after saving New York City back in the 80s, some gratitude.

"What do you want him for?" she asked, refusing to answer his question until she knew what his business was.

"I need to speak with him," the man insisted, "My name is Walter Peck Jr."

Pauline blew out a sharp exhale like she was blowing smoke to go with it. That name rang a bell, but from where? She turned and hollered through the screen door, "Daddy, there's some Pecker person here to see you." As she turned back to him, she could see him rolling his eyes at her comment. A minute later Peter came to the door, opened it slowly and said, "Y-e-e-e-s?"

"Dr. Venkman," the young man said.

"That's my name, yes," Peter answered.

"I'm Walter Peck Jr."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Peter told him.

"Can I please speak to you…inside?" he asked.

"Alright," Peter said reluctantly, "But we ain't staying long."

The three of them went into the house and into the living room and Peter asked, "So what brings you here?"

"Actually, it's my father," Walter said.

"Oh great, old Dickless," Pauline said as she picked up the beer she'd been drinking earlier and took a swig of it, "What's the S-O-B want?"

"Actually, my father died recently," Walter explained.

Pauline did a spit take and looked at her father and said, "Oh boy."

"You see, Dr. Venkman," Peck said, "Towards the end of his life, my father felt _very_ remorseful for the trouble he caused you."

"Well it wasn't so much _us_ as the trouble he caused an entire city," Peter responded, "However in time we've come to overlook that little fact. But what exactly does that have to do with us now?"

"You see," Walter said as he nervously tried to continue, "My father decided to will most of his estate to you and your…" he cleared his throat, "Your company, I'm hoping you will accept it on my behalf."

Peter and Pauline glanced at each other and then back to the man who reached into the inside of his jacket and took out a folded piece of paper and handed it over to Peter. He unfolded it and found it was a check, and he whistled at the amount. Pauline elbowed her father and murmured under her breath, "Maybe last Christmas three more ghosts paid him a visit."

"This is a very generous offer, but I don't know that we can accept," Peter told Walter.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," he replied.

"Well, call it what you will but I just don't feel right taking money from a dead man," Peter said.

"Since when?" Pauline murmured.

Peter seemed to ignore her but very subtly brought his foot back and kicked her to be quiet. She kept her mouth shut until Peter saw Walter out and when he came back she got up from the couch and said, "What'd you do that for? We could've used that money."

"I know," Peter told her, "But I'm not sure this wasn't a test, and I wanted to screw with his mind."

"Peck's dead, imagine if we wind up having to bust him one of these days," Pauline said.

"I like his son," Peter admitted, "I wonder how somebody so rude could wind up with a kid that nice."

"What do you like about him?" Pauline asked.

"Well for one thing he knows how to say please, unlike his father," Peter told her, "Another thing, also unlike his father, he had sense enough to address me as _Doctor_ Venkman, instead of Mr. Venkman, etiquette and proper respect where respect is due still count for a lot where I'm concerned."

"You are unbelievable," Pauline said, "You pass up an opportunity to collect on ten million dollars just to screw with a guy."

"And I suppose you had plans for that money, right?"

"Sort of," Pauline told him, "You remember Uncle Ray's plans to make Ghostbusters a country widespread industry? Well that kind of money could've been a good start in that direction, we could branch out anyway."

"Don't worry about that," Peter said, "The time will come."

* * *

Everything comes in cycles, what was once old becomes new again in another generation. And one of the new attractions that were making a comeback in the more suburban parts of New York was the drive in theater; every night over the summer the lot filled up with cars full of people anxious to get that experience that their parents had known and see whether it was as great as they remembered, or if it had just been a load of hot air. Some people apparently thought it was worth the trip out because several of them came back for more on following nights. On this particular night everybody was cramped in watching an old gory monster movie, when all of a sudden the viewers noticed something on the screen that didn't belong in the movie.

First it just looked like some wise guy near the back of the theater was standing up and casting his shadow on the screen, going through a series of ridiculous movements and gestures. Then the screen started smoking and large holes burnt into it as the whole thing melted and out shot a full bodied apparition who cackled madly as he terrorized the moviegoers by jumping onto the hoods and roofs of their cars, stomping and pounding on the vehicles as he passed them one by one and ran from one to the next. He cleared a row of 10 cars and jumped over the edge, completely overshooting the motorcycle parked beside the last car, and then as he 'hit' the ground, Pauline nonchalantly moved her foot from the brake pedal and stomped on the control triggering the trap which opened up right underneath the ghost and sucked him in.

"I hate when they interrupt the movie," she said as she tossed down her magazine and got up.

Raynelle and Benjamina came running up and they asked, "You got it?"

Pauline picked up the smoking trap and said, "He's in there."

"Great!" Raynelle exclaimed.

"Hey, how did you know that would work?" Benjamina asked her.

Pauline shrugged and said only, "What can I say? I learn from the best." She turned to Raynelle and asked her, "Now are you _sure_ that's the only one?"

"I'm telling you, nothing else was picked up on the PKE meter, it has to be," Raynelle answered.

"Well that's good," Pauline said, "Now as soon as the owner gets a new screen, he'll be back in business."

"Looks like we'll be going somewhere else to continue our date," Raynelle said. They'd originally gone to the movie for a night on the town with a couple of the guys who called the house asking about them. When they found out that the theater was having problems and it sounded like something right up their alley, business had gotten mixed with pleasure and Pauline had been brought in to assist, but since it didn't sound like a particularly large problem they hadn't bothered calling in the others for backup. Apparently it was a good thing because they hadn't needed it.

"Yeah, you do that," Pauline said as she got back on her bike and kicked the stand up.

"Where're you going?"

"Home, better get joy boy on ice as soon as possible," Pauline told them, "I'll see you guys later."

They waved her off as she left, and once she was gone, they turned to each other and Benjamina asked, "What do you think's with her?"

Raynelle shrugged and said simply, "She always was a weird one."

Benjamina snorted and said, "Now there's calling the vase Ming."


End file.
